What To Do In a B Movie World
by ArcSele
Summary: Waking up in an unfamiliar place wasn't new to him. Being in Japan was. Finding he was in a horror manga, or what would become one, was worse.
1. Chapter 1: Autumn I

Dedicated to Grape-kun

I

[1st]

I wasn't all that surprised or uncomfortable to find myself waking up in a house that wasn't mine. This kind of thing happened, I was visiting a friend or traveling for family vacation, nothing to flip a tit over. The first sign something was wrong was when I put on my shoes and stepped outside to find a small store near me that had not an ounce of English but instead Japanese. This was unusual but I put it off as one of us moving near some local twist on Japanese cuisine. The next problem was when turned to find some joint that I could understand or enjoy only to find more of a language I didn't understand. I blinked a couple of times and looked around me, the people walking about were all Asian, Japanese I would guess if the signs were any indication and moreover some of them had what appeared to be uniforms.

Reacting like any confused individual I turned around and headed back to where I'd come out of. Looking around the place I'd woken up revealed that the house was rather small and more than that, sparse. Spartan was the first phrase that came to mind, though that left when I noticed a TV and laptop plus a few other handy things. Huh, when did I move to Japan?

It was after shaking myself of any remaining drowsiness and stupidity that I started looking into my situation a bit more. Checking my pockets found all the usual stuff I kept, albeit with some changes from the norm. Keychains, little wipe packs for my glasses, and wallet in my left pocket, which included some IDs along with some passes and cash in the form of Yen, though my first name had been changed for some reason. Pocket knife and change in the right.

Breaking out of my early morning daze had revealed that all the foreign characters that had previously meant about as much to me as screams to a deaf person were now perfectly understandable, as I'd discovered browsing the boob tube and seeing multiple channels in Japanese and finding I could easily get what I was seeing and hearing. Checking my phone showed my apps remained the same and checking the laptop showed that it was indeed mine and that I'd been just titting about on YouTube and the like recently, as well as the fact that I'd recently been hired at a local convenience store, all said and done I seemed to be living by myself rather capably for a while now. The question was, what brought me here?

The first day at work had been fine, I'd been one of only two people working that shift and had relatively few customers coming in, an intentional thing it seemed, as the owners -a lovely middle-aged couple named Satoru and Ayame Kouno- figured it'd be best not to overwhelm the newbie, which was fine considering I'd worked retail before, not that they had to know that, though they did say it'd be tougher from tomorrow on. The person working with me was a fidgety teenager by the name of Naoya Hiyama, a second year at the local high school, Fujimi Academy. All around seemingly nice people though Naoya looked ready to jump if someone sneezed too loudly.

I took off my shoes as I entered my house, after leaving work I had taken a few hours to walk around the neighborhood, trying to get a feel for the place; that, along with standing behind a counter for hours even if I didn't really do much while there led to my feet aching quite a bit by the time I arrived. Being a college age adult that hadn't really done much physically or otherwise in the time before finding myself here meant I wasn't really ready for the amount of foot travelling one did in Japan, though I found that it wasn't nearly as bad as it should've been.

I padded over to my bathroom and started the bath up, hoo boy, living here was gonna take some getting used to. Finishing that brought up something, the school Naoya had mentioned when introducing himself, something about that name tickled my brain, I'd never been to Japan or known anyone that had either, much less went to school here.

I racked my brain trying to see what I could recognize it from, a documentary? Don't think I watched one of those recently enough to have it stick. A book? Hadn't read a book with a Japanese setting in a while either, a manga or anime perhaps? Most likely but again I couldn't remember any of those with a Fujimi Academy from recent memory, I hope that didn't mean it was a bad one or something, that was really the only thing I could think of where I'd try to forget anything about it, at least enough to not remember a school, unless it wasn't one of the main locations?

I gave a quick sigh and finished cleaning up before I walked over to my towel, drying off and dressing, it was then that I looked in the mirror. Truth be told, I hadn't really looked in a mirror or seen my reflection all day, never really had a reason to. Trying to be presentable was fine and all but, honestly, while my hair was kind of curly and my longest amount of facial hair amounted to 'barely over prepubescent' at most, neither were enough of a problem at this point to worry about. Other than that, making myself look alright was rather simple and didn't require looking in the mirror.

That said, I saw that the roundness that had followed me throughout life and quite noticeable hunch from around junior high were gone, as well as most of the more obvious blemishes I'd had. Did I have surgery or something before moving here? Had I been on the run and decided to change my appearance before skedaddling away from home? Possible, in both cases though my lack of debt and the fact that I'd kept my real name on all forms of ID said otherwise for the latter, unless I was incompetent of course.

Stepping out of the bathroom I decided to shelve these thoughts for later, barring the possibility of me being on the run from some government conspiracy or something, I doubted that sleeping would put me in danger. I walked to my room and started to charge my phone before flopping onto my bed. Thankfully rather than a futon, couch or just the floor itself the me that lived here had had the grace and benevolence to get a real bed.

I closed my eyes. Hopefully some of the questions I'd had earlier would be answered in the coming future.

This wasn't good.

The next day at work I'd been busy doing my job, ringing things up, making sure the customers were all good with change and such when three friends came in. The first thing that stood out was their appearances, 2 boys and a girl, the taller one had straight gray hair and brown eyes, a nice face and frame. Not normal but definitely not something to really care about.

Then came the other two, the shorter boy had brown eyes, a lean build and spiky black hair, spiky. Huh. The girl was the shortest of them all, with orange hair that had two prominent bangs and what seemed like small antenna, as well as a figure that I could only assume would result in major back pain, all of them had uniforms on. The fact that none of the adults were all that bothered by the hair color or appearance itself meant this was normal or at least not as out of place as it should have been. Then I heard the name coming from the tallest boys' mouth from the end of his question, "-Takashi?" That made a niggling thought appear in my mind, as if this should have been important, why? It was just his name.

Takashi replied while turning to the girl, "Sounds good, wanna come over too Rei?" That sent a special kind of nausea through my body. Why did these names ring alarms in my head? What was so special about them?

"Excuse me, Vega-san?" A voice asked. I don't think I was gonna get used to that, especially the weird accent with which it was pronounced, for a while; seeing it in games or the like was one thing, hearing it was a totally different matter. I looked over to Naoya and saw him nervously looking at me.

"Hm?" I returned, still trying to puzzle out why these kid's names were bothering me.

"Are you alright? You just stumbled a bit." He looked me over while shuffling a bit. I assured him I was and turned back to the group to see them staring at me. They'd been close enough to the register to see my stumble and were looking at me with varying emotions. Ah, shoot, forgot to greet them. "Welcome," I said, bowing a bit while saying so. They quickly nodded at me and started going to different spots, presumably to get their stuff.

Why did that happen? What was- Oh.

Well, bollocks.

That's why I recognized the names.

The answers I'd received weren't very welcome.

This changes everything.

That's why I'd forgotten the name of the high school.

Generally, I wasn't the kind of person that went for horror, fanservice or not. I wasn't one for things where lots people died in a short amount of time either, but when I did stumble upon one that I would choose to read, I'd push it from my mind after finishing to not dwell on all the negative aspects of the universe so as not to feel bad for people that weren't real. That being said this was a horror manga.

I was in High School of The Dead

Realizing such a thing made my memories of the show flood back into me and I started to panic, so I'd checked the time to see if I was going to be attacked by zombies tomorrow or something. It was October 16th. I started to think about what I'd seen; Takashi and Rei didn't seem to have had their breakup yet as there was no awkwardness or tension. All of them were wearing long sleeved uniforms which meant the winter ones, this supported the fact that yes, the date on my phone wasn't wrong, or at least not completely off. Then there was the fact that they were wearing what looked to be the variations of the same uniform meaning they were all in high school, presumably. If that was true then Takashi and what had to have been Hisashi were first years. Meaning I only had a few months assuming it happened during spring, an assumption since there were cherry blossoms, and that only happened when it was spring right? God, I needed to do some research if I didn't want to die quicker than the extras.

This sucked.

That was an understatement, this was a catastrophe.

I couldn't even tell when things happened, I didn't go to school anymore and I doubt I could apply as a teacher, they had to have standards right? I mean, I guess the ghouls trying to chomp me would be a good indication that everything had gone into the gutter but I'd prefer one that didn't turn me into a side character with a bit of knowledge, thank you very much.

How did I get here? The only possible explanation I could think of was a dream or a ROB. In the case of the former, dying would do me well in getting out of it. In the case of the latter, that was very much _not_ an option, obviously. If this was a ROB I would find my way out of this mess and beat him senseless, or die trying, though that would make my survival of this moot but hey, vengeance is cool, yeah? if this was a dream I was gonna look myself in the mirror when I woke up and punch myself as hard as I could for putting myself through this.

God. This sucked.


	2. Chapter 2: Autumn II

II

[1st]

Kind of fitting that I was sent into this world in October.

That was the first thing I can remember thinking after my initial panic upon realizing that I had been sent to what would become an undead buffet in a few months.

The summary of my time thinking and flailing is as follows: I could die! Not if I'm prepared! How do I do that? Geh. Ah- never mind. Guess I could wing it. That's asking for death. Oh boy, oh jesus. Think back on the preparation a character has put into zombie stories, any one, something.

An altogether fruitless waste of time. I had decided to leave it for a future me to worry about and went to bed.

One month had passed since my epiphany and the panic that followed. Halloween had come and gone and in that time a plan had formed. Collect non-perishable goods, work out, learn and purchase stuff for self-defense, maybe some camping equipment, yadda yadda yadda. Definitely a work in progress. I'd even gotten to doing some of that stuff, though admittedly not much. Despite having better posture and being thinner and all around looking better I had not been blessed by the Powers That Be with incredible fitness and physique. The first few weeks of working out had been what one would describe as 'Hellish.'

Thanks to that however, I'd discovered something. The day after my first work out I woke up sore, all kinds of sore, like you wouldn't believe, making work rather difficult. What I found however was that by the next day not only was I feeling better, I felt stronger.

I'd tried working out for a bit (read, a week) back home and quickly given up, I know for a fact I hadn't felt that much stronger if at all. And seeing how long it had taken my older brother to make notable gains told me this wasn't normal. Then I remembered something, this was Highschool of The Dead; here, Takashi and the others (with the exception of Saeko and Rei kinda, seeing as they were trained in weapon use beforehand) had gone from normal people to action stars. The transition shouldn't have been as easy as it was, and yet there hadn't been any obvious problems. This brought me to a conclusion, to ease the burden of a tougher lifestyle on people wholly unprepared for it the world made physical activity easier. I could use this, I'd been worrying what to do to prepare and this give me a significant step in the right direction. If the burden of physics lightening up allowed them to pull crazy stunts, I could too, all I needed was time, dedication and knowledge. All of which were present.

It was time to start the grind.

After that I'd found myself making steady progress, seeing as it'd been only a month nothing too major had taken place. Work was fine, the only problem with taking care of myself was all the bills to pay; I could cook and clean well enough to make sure my health wasn't a problem and I hadn't had any reality shaking encounters with the cast or important people in the world and things were peaceful. I could prepare unheeded by any problems.

I decided to look into the main characters. Nothing came up for Takashi, Zeke or Shizuka. Made sense seeing as they didn't really have any relation to people of note. The details that I didn't know about the others were few, Rei's father was respected and had a few cases under his belt so his deal with Shido seemed to be just the latest in a string of corruption reveals, or at least it would've been if not for what would eventually happen. While I had known that Alice's dad had been a journalist I hadn't known what he covered, which was to say a lot. From what I saw his articles covered a wide spectrum of subjects, none of which really caught my attention. Saeko's father, Hideki Busujima was really, really good. The crazy things I'd seen Saeko do in the anime were nearly eclipsed by her father, seeing him in action made me realize just how far one could go in a world like this. In one of his demonstrations he'd shown his quick draw; I'd seen Stan Lee's Superhumans, the episode where a guy cut a pellet in two had been amazing to me, Hideki surpassed that. He cut a pellet going over 500 kph clean in half and managed to almost have his sword back in the sheath by the time it hit the wall. This guy was incredible, I could definitely see how Saeko was so good with someone like this teaching her.

More importantly this was inspiring to me. Obviously, I couldn't get quite this skilled since I didn't have that long but I could work with this. Being in this small apartment with a job at a convenience store didn't mean my chances of getting out of this were as abysmally low as I'd previously thought, he was proof of that.

That night my work out was especially intense.

"Welcome!" I greeted as the door opened and more customers walked in. It was Takashi and Hisashi. I'd discovered throughout the month that he came here often, usually with friends though sometimes without. I'd gotten to know them a bit through hearing snippets of conversation. Takashi was generally easy going, talking and laughing with whoever he was with. Hisashi seemed more calm, still nice and talkative but not as loud as Takashi. Rei was kind and caring, often making sure they didn't forget anything and easily talking to multiple people at once. I have to say, it was quite a difference from what I remembered in either version of the story, though I suppose that was due to the strained nature of her relationship with Takashi and not really being comfortable with everyone else. Last was Morita; there hadn't been much to see of him from the story, a few lines to Takashi before he died in the first chapter and a bonus chapter with exposition on the girls. Seeing him alive was odd, the bits we had seen from the manga were enough to get a picture of his personality and he stayed relatively true to that, he was The Fun One of the group, making jokes, pervy remarks and other light hearted things, though never going over the line.

It was interesting to say the least to see all this interaction with people I knew were gonna be dead come next spring. Like a slice of life spin off but, you know, real, I guess.

Takashi and Hisashi came up to the counter and placed their stuff on it, I rung it up and bagged it, accepting their pay and quickly bowing while giving a farewell. "Vega-san?" A voice quietly called out.

"Yes?" I glanced at Naoya and waited for him to say something.

"Why do you always stare at them?" His voice was soft, almost like he'd been afraid to ask. In the time I'd known Naoya he'd gone from extremely nervous to passable, the fact that he asked me anything at all was good as I'd been sorely lacking in ways to distract myself from boredom on the job other than occasionally staring at Takashi and his friends.

"They remind me of school, and I know one of them" I said, not quite the whole truth, but I didn't really want to tell anyone that now did I?

"How so?" He asked, seemingly gaining a little confidence from my casual speech and not rebuffing his question.

"The uniform for one thing," I started, trying to think of anything else that would warrant staring at them specifically. "The way they spoke, how happy they were, that kind of thing." I couldn't really think of anything else to say.

"Ah," he said, I guess that meant this conversation was drawing to a close. "Did you enjoy it?" he mumbled.

Guess not. "School?" I asked, turning to him, he nodded. I mulled that question over, had I? I'd never really thought about it other than the usual 'school sucks, why does this matter?' But now that I was out? "I dunno," I said, not wanting to take too long with my answer lest Naoya think I wouldn't reply. "I guess," I amended.

"Oh, how did you know them?" he asked, seeing I didn't have much to say on that and changing topics.

"I started learning karate," I said. After watching Hideki the first few weeks I'd figured it was time to get started on learning how to fight and joined a class, even if I wasn't going to use it against the spooks I figured the conditioning would help at the least and I planned on learning more than just Karate in the first place. Needless to say I was surprised to see that Hisashi was there and remembered him mentioning that when he'd refused to use a weapon in the first chapter. I'd laughed and chastised myself, I was doing something that one of the main characters' friends did, of course we would be doing it at the same place. Thankfully no one had cared about me suddenly laughing in the middle of training.

"Ah," he said again, this time not choosing to say anything else.

Neither of us said a thing after that.

[3rd]

Hirano Kohta was tired, some upperclassmen had been harassing him again, slinging the usual insults and prodding him, trying to get a rise out of him. No one had helped him of course, they never did. He was always stuck taking it whether in school or out. Once they'd let him go he'd just brushed himself off and started to head home. Thankfully he had something to look forward to. In a little over a week he'd be heading to America for some training, thinking about all the awesome stuff he'd learn over there brought a small smile to his face.

"Hey, tubbs!" The harsh tone and words he heard made that smile die a very young death. He paled and gulped while turning around, looking to what he could only assume was another person or group of people ready to pick on him. He was sadly proven right when he saw the blonde hair and muscular build of Tsunoda Hino, member of the track team and one of Kohta's top tormentors. Kohta breathed deeply and hunched in on himself, assuming an aura of submission and defeat. "Yes, senpai?" He softly asked, wanting this to be over already.

"Hah?" Tsunoda sneered, cocking his head as if trying to make sure he heard Kohta correctly, "don't you mean sir?"

"Yes sir?" Kohta quickly corrected, drawing further into himself.

"Listen to this fucking useless otaku!" Tsunoda cackled "couldn't even address me properly!" Those with Tsunoda laughed, Kohta stiffened. "Did our game earlier make you forget everything important? Or are you just that stupid?"

"No sir," Kohta said, staying completely still.

"Make sure to remember next time okay? We wouldn't want to have to make sure you remember, you couldn't pay us back for wasting our time on you if that happened." Tsunoda lectured, playing up the situation before continuing "I'm glad I caught you now, me and my buds were just thinking we wanted something to eat and who better to help us then our bud Kohta huh?"

Kohta looked out of the corner of his eye and saw everyone walking past him, playing off what was happening and going about their business. As always.

That made what he had to say all the worse.

"I don't have any money senp- sir." Kohta started to tremble, he knew what was coming next.

"What was that?" Tsunoda asked, leaning in again and feigning confusion "it almost sounded like the fatty refused."

"I don't have any money," Kohta said again, dread building the longer this went.

"What did I say about paying us for spending time on you Kohta? If you don't have anything then you're gonna hafta pay us another way, right?" Tsunoda said, voice oozing with sleaziness. The other guys started to close in on Kohta and he began to hunch over. Here it comes. "Well I'm sure I'll think of something this time," Tsunoda said, already stepping closer and loosening up. Here it comes.

As soon as he was in range, his fist lashed out.

They'd been just getting to the worst of it when one of them cried out and fell.

Kohta didn't dare look up in case one of them took the chance to kick his face, he'd made that mistake once, it was enough to not do it again. Still, it seemed as if they'd suddenly stopped hitting him though Kohta knew that couldn't have been it. Why would they?

A minute passed. Kohta heard a heavy breath followed by some spit, he flinched, he hated it when they spat on him. Still nothing came. He felt a hand shake him and he tightened up. The hand pulled back and Kohta waited for the punch that was sure to follow.

Again. Nothing.

Eventually Kohta looked up meekly and saw two people sitting by him, waiting for him, as well as his tormentors lying on the floor, groaning or out cold. He started to loosen up and sit down, though not before backing away a bit, just in case.

"You alright?" One of them said, he was tall with well kept grey hair and neutral brown eyes. A good looking face without glasses and he seemed rather lean, like a gymnast or maybe a welterweight boxer, his voice made him seem more mature, Kohta thought it somehow suited him. He got up and held a hand out to Kohta, who briefly hesitated before taking his hand and getting up.

"Yes, uh," Kohta paused, still nervous, "thank you." He started to bow before flinching at the pain that flared up.

"No problem," the boy said, smiling and waving off Kohta's thanks. They both heard shoes shuffling closer and turned to look at the figure. It was the other person Kohta had seen when he looked up, though this one appeared a bit older, plainer and foreign. His hair was brown and wavy, it swirled about kind of messily, though Kohta guessed that was from the fight. He had glasses that were crooked and droopy brown eyes, which seemed to be sizing up Kohta, something he noted with curiosity and a bit of caution. He was just as tall as the boy and broader, adding to the impression he wasn't Japanese.

"Jeez, you took quite a few hits yourself didn't you, Vega-san?" the boy asked lightheartedly, looking him over and seeing that he was indeed more banged up. The boy suddenly realized something and turned back to Kohta, making the boy flinch. "Oh, I haven't introduced myself, I'm Igou Hisashi, nice to meet you, though I wish it could've been under kinder circumstances." He bowed a bit and Kohta returned it while getting out a quick 'nice to meet you.' "Hirano Kohta," he said before Hisashi turned to the other person which he took as his cue to introduce himself. "T-Vega Thomas, nice to meet you." His voice was deep but flat, as if he always tired. The name was definitely foreign. He stuck his hand out, Kohta stared at it for a second before Thomas spoke up "not too fond of bowing if it's all the same to you," he clarified. Kohta realized what he meant and shook his hand. "Thank you," he replied, bowing a bit and shuffling about.

"Happy to help," Thomas replied, tilting his head a bit as he did so, his glasses slipping before he pushed them up.

"We should probably get out of here before they wake up," Hisashi said, to which Thomas hummed in agreement and Kohta gave a brief nod. They asked where Kohta lived and started to head there with him, chatting intermittently.

[1st]

When I'd tried heading to my lessons with Hisashi who'd come in for some snacks alone and decided to head to the dojo with me after dropping his stuff off at home and changing, I'd assumed it would be a normal affair.

Then we'd come across someone getting wailed on and Hisashi had rushed in to help him. It had turned out the victim was one Hirano Kohta, gun expert of the main group and one of the major contributing factors to their continued survival. I can remember thinking about what the odds were to come across him so soon after meeting Hisashi but pushed it aside in favor of not ending up flat on my back. After dropping him off at his house, we'd headed to the dojo to explain what had happened and try to participate anyway. The dojo master commended us for helping the defenseless but wanted us to not be so reckless next time. We were allowed to lightly go at it and went home early.

Which brought me to now. I was aching, quite so. I'd never really been in a fight before and the only reason I hadn't been laid out was Hisashi backing me up and the bit of training I had on the amateurish thugs. That along with the fact that I'd gone through with lessons anyways meant I was worse off than any other time since arriving. I was trying to alleviate some of this by soaking in a hot bath and thankfully it actually worked, even if it wouldn't prevent me from feeling it again tomorrow.

Coming out and feeling refreshed I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, eating it while messing about on my phone. Every game I had while the same in that I owned them were different due to the fact that I'd essentially traveled back in time. A lot of the things I enjoyed presently didn't exist yet actually. Persona 5 chief among them as I'd been trying to Platinum it but the point was this: even if I had the same stuff, they weren't nearly as far along as they were back home. Which wasn't to say passing time was more difficult now, quite the opposite in fact; looking up stuff I'd meant to get to before, things that were now available to me since I could read and speak a whole different language and preparations for the apocalypse this coming spring made sure my hands were rather full.

I finished my sandwich and continued browsing for a while before stopping and going to my room. It was about 8:40, still plenty of time before sleep was required. So I picked up my laptop and started to search for things to buy. I'd started this well before starting my lessons and around the time working out had really picked up so I'd done quite a bit of looking around. The biggest problem I had was that I was a clerk in a small place, not only was space a problem but price was too. I had to worry about bills, food and lessons, finding spending money besides that was troublesome and even when I had it, there was only so much managing I could do before running out of space and one of those storage rooms would be a problem as well since it would be another drain on my funds. If I tried to keep tabs on what I wanted to buy and bought them when the time was near there was the problem of getting it all in a safe place in a timely fashion, spread too long and drain became a problem again, rush it at the end and there was a chance that what I wanted would be gone. There was the fact that I could just buy a different brand or wait for restocking but the problem with that was I wanted the best I could afford, and I would constantly doubt if what I'd gotten would be enough, though I suppose that would be a problem anyway. And throwing aside the budget plan for piling on debt brought with it more possibilities to consider.

I let out a long, suffering, sigh. This was hard, being an adult was hard, not just when it came to surviving the apocalypse either, it sucked in general. Why couldn't I just be back home? Lounging around and not worrying about anything? I looked back at the clock, 10:13. I'd found and purchased some minor things from my list while thinking about all the problems I had without even realizing it. Good job, me, seriously. I should go to sleep now, my shift started at 9:15 tomorrow and while I didn't need too long to wake up once up and about, there was the danger of oversleeping if I stayed awake for much longer, even with an alarm, or ten.

I just hoped my soreness and bruises didn't make everything a hassle.


	3. Chapter 3: Winter I

III

[3rd]

Busujima Saeko was running, doing it helped her stamina with an added benefit of letting her sort through muddled thoughts.

Usually doing this at night alone would be considered dangerous, were it not for the fact she had the means and knowhow to protect herself.

She steadily breathed as she bounced along the road, hair and body swaying rhythmically. Her father was planning on returning from a trip abroad in about a week. When that happened, he would most likely forbid her from doing this so she had to get all the time in that she could, though she could at least say she would be happy to see him. It had been a few months since he was last home and that was fine, as his dojo was overseas anyway so him being away was nothing new, but still, she missed him.

After that thought, Saeko stopped thinking for the next few minutes. The only sound her breath and soft steps on the pavement.

Then she turned a certain corner and heard a second set of feet. It was him.

For over the past two months, twice a week when she went out there would be someone in front of her. Partway through that would change as his pace slowed so he could catch his breath and fell behind before eventually stopping altogether and she would continue, unheeding of his pause, neither seeing nor hearing him until next week when they would inevitably cross paths again. Last week he'd almost kept pace with her for over half an hour before she heard the telltale sign of labored breathing minus the footsteps and continued on her way. She was curious as to how much progress he had made in the past few days.

5 minutes, 10, 20, 30. 40 minutes passed and he continued to relatively keep pace with her, she was even about to stop. Her inner competitiveness told her to keep going, that she had to win but the ache in her legs and the burning in her lungs brought that train of thought to a stop. As she slowed before halting completely, she looked behind to congratulate him only to see him facing the other direction, already heading back the way they came. Her words died out and she caught her breath for a minute before starting the journey back as well. She got through a good chunk of the trip before realizing she hadn't seen him at all. How odd. She looked around to make sure she hadn't missed him and continued on her way home, wondering what path he took and if he'd manage to surpass her next time.

How interesting her runs had become.

[1st]

After my run I rested for a bit before taking a quick bath and resuming my online shopping.

I was significantly farther in my preparations now. Multiple changes of clothes suitable for spring, summer and winter; some water filters and iodine tablets, a bit of protective attire for bites and such and a couple dozen MREs kept in a mini fridge so they'd last longer, to list a few things obtained just this month. Still had a ways to go before I'd consider myself satisfied with everything but I was making steady progress, and it was only December 19th so if my timeline was right I still had around 4 months... That wasn't all that comforting actually. 4 months. That was only barely over twice the time I'd already spent here. I remember when I'd graduated that much time had flown right past with little progress made in anything I'd wanted, though I'd admittedly not been working all that hard, especially compared to now. At this pace I'd have enough time to get what I wanted, not including bonuses. Especially since I didn't really have anyone I considered close enough to spend Christmas with, therefore lacking any need for presents, but still, I felt wary.

Disregarding my lack of close friends and the deadline growing closer I had another thing to think about. Warning people. So far I'd been preparing myself and only myself. Like I said, I didn't have anyone close enough that I'd feel comfortable inviting them to hang out during Christmas and I doubted anyone felt that way about me either, much less tell them about Zombies destroying a chunk of the world before the next year was even halfway done. After thinking about it for a while the only warning I could think of was leaving notes or something so they wouldn't be caught completely off guard when they started tearing through houses and people, as well as some warning on online forums, though I doubt I'd be taken seriously, it was still something I was gonna try. Though it would be sometime during February or March, it would be plenty of time for those that were gonna take it seriously to prepare.

Ever since mid-November I'd felt empathy for SI's and the things they did to make canon better, especially if they were in a series where they were working to better the whole world and not just a small group or themselves. This was taxing enough, no way did I want to be responsible for a city, let alone the world.

Another day, another headache. At least tomorrow was Sunday and I had a day off. So I could just ache and prepare in peace.

"I'm a bloody moron," I said, rubbing my eyes and cursing the weekend for the customers and rushing it brought with it. Regardless of the fact that the place I worked at (it was called Kon-Bini, a marvelous joke in my opinion) wasn't very teeming with people as say, Walmart or Costco, it was still rather active, especially in the weeks approaching Christmas. Though this place wasn't as big on the decorating as home, people were still plenty happy about buying presents and while Kon-Bini wasn't the place where they got the gifts, it was close enough for people to get snacks and what have you when leaving the nearby stores. As such the place was busy enough that they'd called me in on an unscheduled day. Even with the assurance I'd given myself by adding up my pay through the months it still didn't hurt to get extra, so I accepted.

Then I found I was the only person that came in at this time who hadn't been already here, which was a whopping 2 people. That being Mr. and Mrs. Kouno themselves.

"Sorry, Tom-chan," Mrs. Kouno said, smiling a little while inclining her head. More so than my last name, being called by my first name, regardless of the fact that it wasn't my real one, with an honorific of any kind still made me feel kinda weird, like a weeaboo roleplay or something. "We weren't expecting this many people," she went on helping the next customer while talking to me.

"Didn't you say that more people would be coming in starting this weekend?" I asked, turning briefly to both of them to pose my question.

"Well, yes, more people, but not this much. I don't think I've ever seen this many people here since my husband took over the shop," she explained, quickly serving two people while talking and moving away to take care of something.

"How long is that?" I was genuinely curious, seeing as I didn't really know much about either of them, though that wasn't all that weird considering I hadn't been here that long and that they weren't around all that often during my shifts.

"22 years," Mr. Kouno answered for her, going about his business while I wondered what the odds were that when I arrived the place suddenly got busier.

"23, dear," Mrs. Kouno corrected, walking by and restocking a shelf with cookies and chips, before returning to the counter to serve more customers.

"Ah, right," he said airily while his wife smiled and worked alongside him.

After that there was only brief talking amongst ourselves as we spent most of our time paying attention to the customers and moving around the store to solve whatever problems came up, and even that was mostly the Kounos'. It almost felt like I was intruding because of how sweet and personal they were with each other, which I suppose I was considering I wasn't supposed to be here, in any sense really.

And just like that, hours passed and my shift ended.

I changed out of the uniform and waved as I headed out.

The next day brought with it slightly warmer weather and less crowded streets. I was walking around and familiarizing myself with a new area of the city, I'd always found it easy enough to memorize directions when paying attention but the problem was I had more on my mind due to my situation and ended up drawing out the process because of frequent distractions and retracing my steps. This was the last part of the city that I wanted to memorize as I didn't really think the others would be worth it. It was peaceful, a lot more well to do than the other places I'd gone to and definitely looked the part with the larger houses and more luxurious area in general. The only reason I considered this place being of any importance was the fact that most of the people living here would probably have some stuff worth salvaging, though I doubted I'd be the only person to think of looting fancy houses. Still, even disregarding my less than good intentions for being here I found I could still greatly enjoy the cold air and relaxed atmosphere here.

I was doing it again.

I blinked and stood in place to bring myself back to my initial task. Where was I? I looked around and saw the last recognizable house about two blocks away. I sighed and started my way back.

"Bark! Bark!" I heard what sounded like a small dog barking angrily. I turned and saw the culprit running towards me before stopping when my eyes settled on it, at which point it settled for growling at me.

"Tamotsu!" I turned my head to the new voice, and I noticed the dog did too. There was a girl quickly walking towards us. She was pale, with hair the color of an apricot and dark blue eyes. She had a long cream colored coat and a fluffy hat that she had her hand on as she sped closer. When she finally reached us she grabbed the dog's collar and started to pet it for a few seconds before turning to me. "I apologize, he is not usually so hostile." she looked sorry and spoke very formally, definitely belonged here.

"It's alright," I responded, not sure what to do when addressed so politely for something that wasn't really a big deal. "Animals don't tend to like me anyways, so I'm used to it." I looked at the dog and observed him more since he wasn't showing any hostility, instead wagging his tail happily as his owner pet him.

"Still," she said, keeping her tone apologetic. "He has been trained, I thought he would be better behaved."

I remember thinking so too when our family got a dog, not that it stopped him from misbehaving.

I looked at the dog again, he seemed rather young and his collar looked rather new, though that might have been the high quality material making it seem as such.

"Is he your first dog?" I asked, trying not to come off as rude.

She blinked a bit before nodding. "How did you know?" She seemed honestly shocked that I knew.

"That's what I thought when we got our dog," I remembered being suddenly struck by the realization that I didn't know anything about them other than the fact that they were adorable and fun to be with when my parents asked me to take care of him while everyone else was out. Months later and I found myself not knowing much more as I wasn't the one taking care of him most of the time since while everyone else was away wasn't very long.

"Oh!" She perked up and brought her hands together while smiling brightly. "You have a dog too? What is his name? What does he look like?" She peppered me with questions, seemingly delighted to talk about dogs, though she didn't sound like she knew much about them either. "Ah!" She suddenly stopped and covered her mouth, looking away. "I am sorry for asking so much, that was rather unbecoming of me."

"No, it's fine," I assured her again, starting to feel rather uncomfortable with how formal she was being. "His name was Sammy," I started, deciding to answer all that I could.

"Shammee?" She asked, tilting her head and messing up his name.

"It's short for Samuel, it's English." I explained, feeling it weird to tell her that when to me it sounded as if we were already speaking it.

"Oh my, how exotic!" She exclaimed, brightening up again. English. Exotic. Heh.

"He was a mix, can't recall what kind though I remember one part was labrador." I answered another question, trying to get through the few I could at least partially answer. "He was black, kinda small for a lab with a goofy face and we had him for 6-ish months." I couldn't really remember much about him.

"Why so short?" She asked, before gasping. "I must ask for your forgiveness, my apologies for bringing up such a painful subject." She bowed and seemed more distraught than before.

"Don't be, I just moved here, I used to live in America and I meant 'had' as in, I no longer care for him since I'm not there." I quickly explained, trying to calm her down again. The dog, licked at her, seemingly sensing her mood and doing his part to keep her happy.

She relaxed, her face lightening up and mood rising again. Then she kneeled patiently, waiting for me to say more while petting the dog. "That's all I got," I said, not knowing what to say next as there wasn't anything else I knew about the dog. I settled for staring at hers. He was a cute one, what with his floppy black ears and how happy he seemed to be stroked.

After petting the dog for a few more seconds the girl made a sound and looked to me, "It just occurred to me that I was taking him for a walk when he came over here, I should be going." She stood and kept her gaze on me. "I'm sorry for not doing so until now but I would like to introduce my dog as well as myself. His name is Tamotsu and mine is Kimura Sachiko, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She finished her statement with a bow.

"Ah, I'm Vega Thomas, nice to meet you." I dipped my head a bit, forgoing a hand shake because of how formal she seemed to be.

"Before I go Vega-san, you said you have just moved here, did you mean this neighborhood?" I shook my head and she stood in silence for a second before speaking again. "What reason are you here for then? Was it to see someone?"

"Just checking out the city," I answered. "I only came here a few months ago so I wanted to take a look around to familiarize myself and because I like taking walks." She made a noise of understanding before she bowed again.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope we can continue to do so in the future. With that being said, please treat me kindly from here on out." She rose from her bow and started to lead the way home, Tamotsu trotting behind her.

I just stared at them. That was the first person I'd talked to outside of work, my martial arts classes or some of the main group and it hadn't gone bad at all. I suppose living independently for a while helped, maybe.

Now that I wasn't talking to anyone or doing much of anything else I continued my way throughout the neighberhood, observing and memorizing streets and houses. Still quite a bit to go.

[3rd]

Night came, so she was running. Saeko was hoping she'd see the boy again this time. She hadn't seen him the past few days and her father would be home by noon tomorrow so she wanted to see if he'd be able to surpass her yet. She held herself back from rushing towards where they usually met, not wanting to tire herself out even a single bit before their competition truly began. Normally, she didn't let herself get caught up in things like this. In fact, when she first encountered him, she thought he was another person trying to have his way with her, after all, no one else in town ran at the same time she did. Ever. Those that did so recreationally were either old enough to do so during working hours, playing on a playground or practicing on the track field.

So she'd prepared accordingly, making sure to be aware of her surroundings in case there were more of them and keeping her arms close so she could draw her bokken.

Then she stopped being able to hear him. After the initial spike in wariness for reinforcements she'd mellowed out through the run. She never quite fully relaxed until reaching her home but found her caution was for naught.

Even if she'd wanted him to try something.

A few days later she heard him again.

And so the cycle of running, listening, alertness and relaxation had carried on until a little after two weeks, at which point he started appearing in front of her and she gradually saw a worthy challenger for herself.

Here came the turn.

Nothing.

Saeko felt dissapointed. Incredibly so. Just another run then.

She turned another corner and was rather surprised to see him. He'd gotten good enough to get ahead, even if it was for just a few seconds.

How wonderful.

40 minutes had passed. They were so close. Unlike last time the boy had managed to keep pace with her, so that they were running side to side. He was a step or two behind and that would probably grow a bit before they stopped running in a few minutes but she still felt exhilarated.

Before she'd met him, any fields she excelled at, she dominated in. Kendo, calligraphy, swordplay in general. She either dominated or found herself in the middle of the pack. To find someone that could keep up with her, even among the track team had been impossible and he'd done so at quite the pace. Saeko could count the times she was this excited on two hands.

They had gone for almost 50 minutes before coming to a stop. They were relatively close, he was only been about a quarter of a meter behind her. Both were panting hard, though he seemed to be feeling it more. After sometime had passed Saeko rose first, this time seeking to give the congratulations that she couldn't give last time.

"I would like to congratulate you for a job well done. I have rarely seen or heard of someone growing so quickly, and certainly never here." She offered a small smile to her fellow runner, waiting for him to say something.

"Th-" A wheeze, he held his hand up before finally raising himself completely, still breathing a bit laborously. "Thanks," He stated simply, looking at her for a moment before offering a hand. "Nice one, even if it wasn't as hard on you, that's still pretty impressive, moreso I guess."

Saeko took the words and his hand with grace, "Thank you, I have worked quite hard to get to this level as well." She stared at him for a while, wondering what to say now that they'd actually managed to stay in the same area without being occupied with anything, she could see that he was struggling with what to do as well, though he looked a bit more uncomfortable than she did.

"My name is-"

"I'm-"

They both cut off and stared at one another, presumably waiting for the other to continue where they left off. He waved his hand in a 'you first' motion and Saeko nodded.

"My name is Busujima Saeko, daughter of Busujima Hideki. I am a third year at Fujimi Academy, it is nice to meet you." Saeko bowed and waited for the boy to do the same.

"I'm Vega Thomas, a clerk at a nearby store, nice to meetcha." Thomas started to stick his hand out again before bowing his head as well.

"Oh my, are you American?" Saeko asked while raising her brows. He made a noise of confirmation and nodded. She supposed it was because of the darkness but he didn't really seem all that different, thought now that she looked closer she noticed his frame was broader and he was taller than most males she'd seen. "I had no idea, your Japanese is impeccable." She meant it too, she'd met natives who didn't speak that well, even if he did speak quite informally.

Thomas blinked, "Uh, thanks. I didn't know it was that good." He seemed genuinely surprised to hear her say that.

"Did you not practice it?" Saeko was confused now and curious as well. It was comparable to if she was surprised about being placed in a match, she put many hours and quite a bit of preparation into her craft so it made sense to at least get that far.

"I, uh, didn't get any formal lessons or anything." He was starting to look uncomfortable, swaying a bit and bringing his arms closer to his sides as if the silence from before was preferable to the topic at hand.

"You are self-taught?" He nodded, Saeko was more impressed now, someone with the diligence and talent to rapidly increase his stamina and speed yet with the brains to teach himself an entirely different language.

Saeko smiled at Thomas again, who looked better now that she'd apparently stopped talking about his Japanese. "Remarkable. Well then, since we have been formally introduced I would ask that you please take care of me," Saeko bowed again, deeper this time. He returned the bow and opened his mouth to say something.

"Same here but I guess I'll get going then, I need to bathe and get some rest for work tomorrow." He started to walk away before Saeko followed after him.

"Last time, when I started to return home I noticed I missed you on the way, where did you go?" She was walking next to him now, asking this as they slowly trod along.

"I've been here for a few months and don't do much other than work, work out or take walks so I've got most of this area memorized." He answered without looking at her.

"Why choose that way then?"

"It's shorter."

"Then why do you take the longer route when running?" Once again Saeko found her curiousity and confusion peaked.

"The alternate route doesn't have just running. And it's not exactly... safe." He took a turn that Saeko did not recognize, it would be interesting to see where this would lead.

"What does it involve then?" She usually wasn't this inquisitive, and part of her was wondering why she was sticking to him this badly. Thomas, for his part, didn't really seem to care, the initial awkardness between them gone to him.

"Parkour." A simple answer, which wasn't to say she knew what that was. But when she was about to ask what that was Thomas suddenly jumped over a fence and started to sprint away, some of his energy evidently back.

Oh, Saeko thought. I wonder if that's what it is.

[1st]

Since I cleaned up I've been lying in bed thinking about how many of the characters I've met and how long it'll take for me to complete the set since I was pretty sure I'd at least meet most of the main characters before everything went down. Takashi and Rei during my first week here, Kohta sometime after signing up for karate, Saeko just now, and possibly Zeke if I was right about the dog from earlier being him. I didn't really think much about that until I started doing a headcount; Sachiko had seemed to be a good match for the image of his master from both versions and the name difference was to be expected. That just left Takagi, Shizuka and Alice.

Getting past that, regardless of the fact that Christmas was in a few days I found that my situation hadn't changed in the last few days since thinking about it and decided to continue working. Mr. and Mrs. Kouno would be the only ones in besides me for the next two days and they would keep the place open until the day of, when they would have whatever family could make it over to relax and chat.

I wonder if I should get a movie or something for then.

"Would you like to come to our house?" Mr. Kouno asked, smiling warmly at me.

"Eh?" Today they'd closed early and I'd assumed it was to prepare for their guests tomorrow so I was rather surprised they were inviting me.

"You told us you had moved to Japan alone and we thought it'd be nice to invite you over today so you could have some company, and besides that, the majority of our family aren't arriving until tomorrow. If you have other plans it's alright to say no, we were just wondering" Mrs. Kouno came in to explain as we all worked to clean up for the weekend. Mr. Kouno smiled and continued working, apparently content with letting his wife do the talking.

"Yeah, I mean yes, that would be nice, but, if I may ask: who's already there?" I would be rather nervous to meet the family of someone I barely knew and I wanted to make sure that there weren't too many people already there.

"Our eldest, Saburo and his family along with our youngest daughter, Suzume." I'd only heard about their oldest son from one of the regulars just coming in to give good wishes to the Kouno's.

"Oh, well, uh, ok then." I didn't really know what to say to such kindness, I'd known they were good people but I didn't think they'd take what was basically a stranger into their house, especially during a family get together, even if most of those people weren't there yet. "When do you want me to come over then?"

"Just come over now, no need to worry about gifts or dressing up." Mr. Kouno answered this time, having started up his car, a little thing which seemed kind of homey if that made any sense. He brought his wife over to the car and opened the door for her before doing so for me and stepping into the driver's side. I sat down and closed the door while putting my seat belt on.

It felt nice.

Their house was rather nice, not massive but not my small abode and certainly not a dump.

As we stepped inside and took off our shoes the first thing to notice was the sounds; children, one crying and the others whooping.

The second thing was what was causing those noises.

In the middle of the living room was a man, Saburo, presumably, swinging around two of his kids on his back, both hollering with a grin that seemed to exude positivity itself. Close to those two, seated at a table were a woman and a baby who was quiet now that the woman had apparently done something to appease them.

Once we were in the doorway of the living room the two boys looked over and dropped from Saburo's back to rush to their grandparents. They tried talking over each with the bigger one mostly succeeding, though not without at least a little bit of interference from the younger one.

"Kenta, Shindo, slow down for a sec and go one at a time," Saburo chastised, coming over to hold back his boys before they knocked over Satoru and Ayame in their excitement before noticing me. "Oh, hello there," he looked to his parents for a second before directing his attention back to me. His mother stopped whatever words were going to come next and waved her hand for me to introduce myself.

"Vega Thomas, nice to meet you," I bowed as I didn't know whether an informal greeting would be good or not.

At this point he'd waved his wife over so they could introduce themselves. He bowed and spoke "I am Kouno Saburo, it is good to meet you," he put his hand on the boys and continued "these are my sons, Kenta and Shindo," they bowed lightly with mumbled greetings before his wife began for herself.

"I am Kouno Mamiko, and this is our daughter Mei," she bowed while holding the baby, who was looking a bit tired by now.

"Tom-chan will be with us for a few hours since he lives here alone," Ayame explained while smiling with a hand on my back. "He's here as part of the family tonight."

My eyes widened a bit in shock, them inviting me over was nice enough but saying to treat me like family? I'd only really expect that with childhood friends, never strangers. Regardless of how I felt on the matter Saburo and his family didn't really seem to have a problem with that and waved me in.

"Where's Suzume?" Satoru asked, looking around the room for his daughter. Saburo pointed to a door to our left. Satoru nodded and turned to address his wife when the door opened and a woman stepped out.

Sometimes when reading or watching something you hear a girl being described as 'frosty', 'intimidating', or the most popular, entirely out of your league. This was one of those times. The person before me didn't really look all that similar to her parents, Saburo seemed to have his father's build and face, his mother's hair and nose, and a few other features, albeit a bit smoother and such because, you know, age and stuff, while his kids had their fair share of similar traits. The only things I could see that could have been passed down for Suzume was Satoru's height and how straight her hair was though that could've been from either parent; her hair was lighter, almost red, her eyes were sharper than either of them, her face more refined and her body of a slimmer build. It was kinda like watching a show where one or more of the children didn't match but no one really commented on it.

That being said as soon as she saw her parents her face lit up and she rushed over, dashing away the 'ice queen' image I'd briefly thought of. I suppose the, uh, energy she had seemed similar.

"Dad!" She wound her arms under his and opened her mouth to talk before she saw me behind him, I saw the smile go away as her expression became neutral. How rude, acting like that to your new brother. Oh wait. She hadn't been there to hear that. Right.

"Who's this?" Sweet, more introductions, I just hope I don't have to repeat this any more after this.

"This is Vega Thomas, he works at our store, he'll be staying with us for a few hours as he doesn't have any family nearby," Satoru said, bringing Suzume's attention back to him and the hug she was still in.

Thanks for taking that off my hands, I thought, giving a brief wave to her as she pulled out of the hug.

"Kouno Suzume," she bowed quickly to which I dipped a bit as well. She walked over to her mother to give her a hug as well and they started to chat.

With introductions out of the way, I just hoped they would start a conversation and keep it going, that kind of thing was never really my strong suit, all the times I'd pulled it off successfully so far were either luck or the me from before. Satoru put his hand on my shoulder and nodded his head towards what looked like the kitchen

"Would you mind coming with me?" He asked, I just nodded and we started to walk over as he dropped his hand. Once we got inside I saw another table with a bunch of stuff lying around. "Suzume doesn't mean anything by her actions, she just takes a bit to warm up is all." Ah, so he'd noticed too, cool.

"I understand." I couldn't really think of anything else to say, back home I'd acted kind of the same way, at least when meeting a bunch of new people. That was one of the reasons I'd hoped there wasn't many people here. Before, during family or friend parties I'd found it rather hard to feel relaxed in any capacity if there was more than 8 or so people. I liked to think I'd improved a bit since arriving here, even if only a little, but I'd still like to keep the contact with random people low.

Since arriving in the room, Satoru had walked around and grabbed a bunch of snacks, and it was now that he pointed to a cabinet above me, "hand me the plates, please, they should be on the middle shelf." I just nodded and opened it before spotting them and handing a few over. "That should be enough," he declared, putting stuff on the plates and nodding his head in satisfaction before turning back to me with two in hand. He handed them to me and grabbed one himself before motioning to the doorway with his head and heading out with it. "Normally my wife and I would do this as everyone here is family but I figure if you're here and standing by the food, it'll be an easy way for the others to approach and get to know you." He said as I followed him to the table where Mamiko had been sitting with the baby a few minutes ago. I nodded, once again thankful for how thoughtful he was.

I hope I don't screw this up.

Nothing too bad so far, accidentally sounded like I was making a pass at Suzume I think, I can't for the life of me remember what I said, just that she didn't look too impressed before excusing herself. Other than that though, smooth sailing. Hopefully.

After that Satoru had pulled me into a conversation about work and how busy it was the past few days, he'd been telling Saburo and Mamiko about it, saw me walking to the kitchen and dragged me in for a second account as Ayame was playing with the kids.

Then his other son arrived.

His name was Aoi and the strangest thing about him was just how normal he appeared. Even with Satoru and Ayame looking relatively their age (that being early fifties), you could tell they had looked good, if not beautiful when they were younger and both kids I'd seen until now were much the same. The plainness of Aoi's overall appearance was unexpected.

That just made me realize how used I'd gotten to seeing everyone being somewhere between 'noice' to 'a strong 11/10'. Regardless of that though, his personality had been a good fit for what I'd seen so far (with the exception of Suzume): welcoming and energetic, though his particular brand of bundle of energy seemed to carry more charisma with it, as his appearance made everyone suddenly convene on him.

Which led to now, the siblings doing most of the talking with either parent getting a shot in when they wanted and Mamiko and I just watching.

"You always acted so much bigger than Akane and Suzume but look at you now, you're the same height," Saburo prodded at Aoi, who pretended to puff his chest at his actions and responded in kind, though Saburo seemed immune to his attempts at tickling.

"Looks like I can't exactly call you big bro now," Suzume said dryly, a small smirk on her face as her brothers continued their duel.

"Hey, hey, hey, I'm still your big bro! There's two whole centimeters between us!" Aoi turned to Suzume briefly before backing away from Saburo and putting up a defensive stance. Suzume snorted at that, which Aoi decided was worthy of another comment. "You laugh but it makes all the difference, and besides that I'll take what I can get at this point, what's up with you still growing anyways? Weren't you supposed to stop like, 3 years ago?"

They continued their routine and I turned to Mamiko, wondering how she would react to her husband acting like this. She was covering her mouth and smothering her laughter and looking at his parents they were just watching, apparently content with not stepping in for now.

"You've been in college for like, half a year right? How come I haven't heard about any boyfriends or anything yet huh? Scare them all off?" The conversation had seemingly switched tracks quite a bit, with the brothers out of their stances and facing Suzume, who suddenly seemed to be getting ganged up on.

"Isn't it my job to ask about that?" Satoru asked, putting his hand on his chin and stroking it. Suzume looked shocked and betrayed before turning to her mother.

"Mother, help, everyone's ganging up on me," She said, hurrying towards her mother and stepping behind her for protection.

"I was wondering the same thing Suzume, I'd really like more grandchildren soon." Suzume recoiled as if burned and pointed to Saburo.

"You have him for that, I'm sure he wouldn't mind making more," Saburo sputtered and looked to his kids while Mamiko's laughter suddenly stopped as her face went a bit red. Aoi was ignorant of this and just laughing at what Suzume had said, bent over a bit and starting to wheeze.

"Never too many grandkids Suzume, I just so happen to have a guy in mind for you." Satoru was completely unfazed by her joke and was starting a counterattack. He rushed over to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders while shaking me, "How about Tom-chan here? He's been working for us for a while and seems like a very responsible young man," he laughed as everyone's attention suddenly turned to me.

Why. Why me.

"No thank you," Suzume rebuffed her father's attempts at setting her up as quick as a whip and just as harsh.

Aoi was quickly at my side to soothe the pain from my rejection. "Ooh, rejected before even making it out of the gate, don't worry Vega-san, I'm sure she's just shy" he grinned at and shook me just as his father had when offering me up.

My face was definitely red now, I wasn't that good with attention from more than like, 3 people and especially not with conversations like this. I just hoped no one noti- not going to finish that sentence.

Suzume went a little red as well, possibly from how rude that could have been taken, stranger or not. I suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy for romance manga characters, if they always felt this awkward a little blushing was excusable.

"No disrespect meant, Vega-san," she quickly dipped as she apologized, which made Aoi laugh.

"See what I mean? Give her time to warm up and boom, you're golden." Please just let these shenanigans end, I was starting to itch from embarrassment.

"What about you? Aoi, all I see is your arm around a guy a few years your junior with a red face-" Geh, he'd noticed. "-what about this girlfriend you've been bragging about? Or do you just spend your time harassing younger guys?" Saburo came to my rescue, oh praise the sun. Aoi quickly disengaged from me with an indignant squawk. "What did you say her name was? Shizuka? Sofue?" Saburo rubbed at his chin, practically the spitting image of his father.

"No, it was Sayaka, right?" Satoru said confidently.

"No, no, no, Shizuka's her sister, and I don't know where the other two came from. Her name's Chitoge, Marikawa Chitoge," Aoi turned on Saburo, clasping his hands and putting on a theatrical look of longing, "and as much as I begged and pleaded for her to come, it was not to be, as she was having a party with her sister," he dropped his act and shrugged his shoulders, "something about celebrating and helping her deal with a breakup, though she said she'd be over for New Year's."

He suddenly perked up, "Oh! She gave me a present for mom and pop too!" He quickly went outside and retrieved two small bags before handing them to both his parents, "she said it was alright to open them now and that she wanted to leave a good a first impression in case she ended up fumbling when she got here," he laughed a bit when he added the last part as they both unwrapped the bundles and looked at what was inside, one of those hats with the ear flaps for Satoru and a scarf for Ayame, both looking quite comfortable and soft.

"Oh-ho," Satoru said, visibly happy with his gift as he looked it over before putting it on, "nice and warm, where did she get these?"

"She made them," Aoi said, preening under the praise of his parents over his girlfriend's gift.

"Eh!" Satoru's face was one of clear shock, his mouth open and eyes wide, "she's definitely too kind for my fool of a son, are we sure you're not pulling a fast one on us?" Aoi deflated as Suzume and Saburo cracked up at the jab before turning to them and starting the back and forth anew.

It felt really nice.


	4. Chapter 4: Winter II

IV

[1st]

I woke up to a screeching bleep coming from my phone. My body flopped over to where I heard the sound coming from, my hand soon reaching over to where I saw it.

"Hello?" I blinked rapidly to try and clear whatever junk was in my eye as well as just waking myself up.

"Eh?" I heard Hisashi's voice come from the phone, confused for some reason. By now I had been in the same dojo as Hisashi for about a month and a half and had become friends with him and his group of friends, we'd exchanged contact info and hung out a few times, that being said I still didn't know why he'd call now.

"Oh, Hisashi, what can I do you for?" My voice came out deeper and rougher than usual, sloppier too. Baby steps.

I heard Hisashi mutter something I didn't understand and start talking to me.

Shoot, I forgot.

I stood up and rubbed my eyes while stretching before suddenly stomping my foot, sending some pain through my system and waking myself up.

"Say again?" I said, feeling more alert. I looked down to the floor and noticed some cracks and a slight indentation where I'd brought my foot down. Bollocks. Underestimated my strength.

"What language was that?" He asked.

"English," I replied simply, I thought he'd known I could speak it, but I guess not.

"Cool, oh! I was calling to ask if you wanted to hang out today." What? I checked the date on my phone to be sure I hadn't slept through the whole of Christmas, the 25th, as I thought. I thought he would have someone to be with, like family or Takashi. Guess that was something we had in common, though I was gonna make sure. More than that I was surprised another person considered being with me at this time, were all non-douches just super nice in this world or what?

"Sure, what'd you have in mind?" By now I'd put my hoodie on and headed over to the kitchen to start getting something to ward off the cold.

"I was thinking about bringing some snacks, games, maybe a couple of movies and just doing whatever." He paused, possibly waiting for suggestions, when none came he continued on. "Other than that, I've called Hirano and Morita to see if they're up for it." Kohta and Morita too? I suppose Kohta's parents were out doing their thing and I didn't really know anything about Morita's.

"Well, what about you? Are your parents busy or something?" I'd gone over to his house once and hadn't seen or asked about his parents. Come to think about it, neither the manga nor the anime gave any details about what his parents did, or even if he had other family.

"Yeah, they're off working, and I remembered that you mentioned living here alone so I thought it'd be cool to ask you too."

I guess that wouldn't be too bad. The thing with the Kouno's yesterday had gone well and I actually knew these guys, even if only somewhat. "So when and where's the meetup?" Morita lived at the dorms and my place was most definitely too small, especially with the increase in stuff I was getting to survive, which would be weird to explain.

"It's between Hirano's and your place, my sister is doing her own thing at our place and I was kicked out, that's the main reason I'm calling really." Oh, that sucked, kind of a dick move too.

"My place is too small for that kind of thing, I've got a two-person apartment," And even that wasn't really true, considering all the stuff I had and was still planning on getting but he didn't really need to know that.

"Guess I'll ask Hirano then," I heard a deep breath come from the other end. Since his sister kicked him out he was probably out in the cold, wasn't he? Unless he'd found somewhere that wouldn't mind someone lounging about. "I'll send the details in a bit. Later" The phone cut off.

Now what?

A ding came about 20 minutes later as I was watching some game show. I held off on looking at my phone for a bit, butt clenched as I watched the current contestant try and keep a top from entering his butt as he laid on the floor, why did they do this to themselves? He failed and a second ding came from my phone as he shot up and hopped about.

 _Here you go_

 _2009/12/25 11:27_

 _Hirano said yes to his house, so now we're in business._

 _Meet up time is 12:30-ish, bring food and drink if you_

 _can though it's not required. Just got confirmation_

 _from Morita too, so expect him there. I'm gonna send_

 _the location in a sec._

 _Hirano's Place_

 _2009/12/25 11:29_

 _261-8703_

 _Chiba, Tokonosu, Mikagechou_

 _It's the house with the big gate, Hirano said as long_

 _as you were in the area you'd know it when you see it._

 _PS: About the English thing, could you help me with my_

 _English then?_

 _PPS: I'm bringing along some work in case you say yes._

I sent a maybe to Hisashi, looked up the location and saw it was about 20 kilometers away, shouldn't take me too long to get there then, I went farther than that on my runs, should only take around an hour, though I guess I could take a bus partway. Wow. Rolling that sentence around in my mind made me realize just how different I was now, physically at least. It would've taken me around 40 minutes to get there on bike before, and I would've felt like collapsing afterwards, the fact that I was probably running the journey - I didn't really wanna spend money on a bike and if a place was too far to walk to I could just take the bus- but that I was brushing off the time and effort was insane.

Disregarding this revelation, I already knew what route I needed to take to get to the bus that would get me closest. That would leave about 4 kilometers left. Shweet. I checked the time again, 11:32. Still had some time to just do whatever. The show I was watching was still going so I just shrugged and continued watching, considering the whole day a cheat day of sorts wouldn't be too bad.

Jaysus, Hisashi wasn't kidding when he said I'd know it when I saw it. When I got to the area I'd looked around for a gate and was confused when I spotted a house at least 3 times as big as the others, though not nearly as large as Takagi's had been.

Walking up to the plate that had the family name, which was engraved on a fancy plate, if I may add, proved this was indeed Kohta's house. Guess having family in a bunch of fancy jobs helped you financially, who knew.

I pushed the buzzer and waited.

"Hello?" A smooth, elderly voice said, was that a butler? That'd make sense with the size of the place.

"Uh, my name is Vega Thomas, I'm here for Kohta." I stood there in silence for a few seconds before the doors opened with another buzz. Well, okay then.

I walked forward for a bit before reaching the doors, reaching to knock only to be interrupted by the door swinging open.

"Vega-san!" Kohta looked both happy and nervous, I waved a hand and stepped inside, taking off my shoes, putting them and the goods I'd brought aside. Kohta turned around and went to a couch near a TV in what I assumed was the living room. "You're the first to get here." He fidgeted in his seat, which was very comfy, I might add, seemingly waiting for some kind of reaction about the house. I will be the first to say my face hasn't ever really been expressive unless I force it to be and the initial shock had already worn off so he was out of luck there.

"Really?" I was honestly surprised about that before I realized that unless they had cars they were either gonna bike here or walk from the bus like I had, which was gonna take a while either way.

"Mm," Kohta made a noise of confirmation and nodded his head, relaxing a bit when he realized I wasn't gonna make a big deal out of his house. I relaxed into the couch, this was comfier than anything I'd sat on since sometime before being thrown into another universe. I could just lay down and sleep right now, if only this thing was mine.

A few minutes passed in silence with me trying to fuse with the couch and Kohta just sitting there, presumably staring at the door. God this thing was soft.

The outer buzzer rang and Kohta opened the doors, waiting for a few seconds for whoever had just arrived to get to the door. He opened it at the first knock and almost got smacked in the face by Hisashi, who held himself back at the last second, Morita was behind Hisashi, bouncing in place. Kohta waved them in and Morita rushed over, taking a knee as he arrived at Kohta

"We have arrived my lord, permission to hold the royal hand?" Kohta looked shocked, understandably not expecting this. Hisashi raised a brow and walked in as well, taking his shoes off.

"I thought you said you were going with the shogun bit?" His face was flat, but you could practically hear the smirk as he said that.

"This place doesn't really look very Japanese though, so I thought this would be better," Morita said, rising and apparently not noticing Kohta's still surprised expression. He turned to Kohta and finally noticed, "what, too much?" Kohta relaxed upon being addressed and looked kind of sheepish.

"No, Morita-san, I just wasn't expecting that." He fidgeted in place a bit as he said that.

"Hey, what's with the -san, man? We're buds, just call me Morita!" He exclaimed with a wide grin, walking up and hitting Kohta on the back, he flinched a bit though Morita didn't see it, again. Hisashi apparently remembered how we'd met him though and necked him. "Ah!" Morita clutched at his neck and retreated.

Hisashi directed his attention to the table where I'd put my stuff and turned to me "so all the stuff goes here then?" Kohta nodded and Hisashi put his stuff on the table.

"Is that what took you guys so long to get here?" I asked, not really knowing what else it could be.

"No, this guy over here," he waved his head to Morita, "got the bus stop wrong and I had to get him, we're just lucky there was another one within 20 minutes." Morita, for his part, didn't really seem to care that he almost made them late and just shrugged as he put his hands in his pockets.

"So we doing this thing here or is there some super cool room for parties?" Morita grinned and rocked on his heels. Kohta just started walking while waving us over. We stopped in a spacious room with a dozen chairs, a table and a large TV. I reached the table and saw some gun magazines, Kohta froze for a second before remembering that it was us here and not some randos from school.

"Is that a Barrett 98B?" I'd spent some time looking at guns when I first got here, thinking about the success with which Kohta had used it and how they'd saved the group's skin often and I'd even had a bit of coaching before leaving home since my friend had been a gun nut and decided to teach me a few things. I'd decided against it in the end as I'd remembered what Kohta had said about even when silenced they made noise, not to mention the prices of some of them, instead deciding on using a bow and arrow, I'd even looked up ways to make my own arrows, though I wasn't all that good yet, with either shooting or making them. Nonetheless I still remembered some of the things I'd found.

Kohta's eyes lit up, a smile splitting his face as he started to get heated up, rushing over to me and getting in my face. Forgot who I was talking to. "Yes! You're into guns too?! What's your favorite ammo type? Is there a specific brand you're into? Have you had training? Doyoupreferhuntingortactical?" He got closer and spoke faster with each question and out of the corner of my eye I could see Hisashi and Morita's faces of surprise at just how quickly and to what degree his demeanor had changed. These rapid-fire questions reminded me of Sachiko, though the topic was definitely a lot more... manly, I guess? Brutal, perhaps.

"Whoa, Hirano-san, calm down," Hisashi stepped in and put a hand on Kohta, who suddenly stopped and stepped back, shuffling awkwardly.

"Ah, sorry Vega-san," He gulped, looking very tense and worried, "I just wasn't used to anyone else knowing anything."

"Hey, it's alright, I gotcha. I don't really know much but I think my favorite ammo type would be .50 BMG, there's just something satisfying about it, but I can't put my finger on it." I tried to draw on the memories of the things I'd looked up, "I haven't really had any formal training like you or a favorite brand, but I am kinda interested in them." I started to flip through the magazine, skimming through the pages. I didn't understand what some of it said but I was sure Kohta would explain if asked, though I might need him to explain the explanation if he started throwing jargon at me. "It'd be cool to talk to you about them later though." He looked even happier then when I'd first brought it up, probably because someone actually wanted to talk about it even after he'd started to rush them with information. He just nodded vigorously.

"So, what are we gonna watch?" I asked, turning the conversation to other matters.

Hisashi reached into his bag and brought out 3 movies. Dawn of the Dead, Wild Zero and Highschool of the Dead. I see you, ROB, not subtle at all. Also, suck dick.

Morita adopted a look of confusion, "Zombie movies? It's Christmas, dude, what gives?"

Hisashi shrugged, "I bought these last month, they were on clearance and I thought they might make for a good laugh or something, never got around to watching them."

"So you thought today would be a good time to watch them?" Morita looked even more confused, his face scrunching up.

"That sounds alright to me," Kohta said, looking Wild Zero over.

I shrugged, "yeah, that'd be fine," We looked to Morita who seemed to come to a decision.

"Let me see that one," he pointed to Highschool of the Dead and started to look it over. "Nice!" He pumped his fist and brought the box to my face, "see that? Aya Ueto, probably somewhere near the top of the Morita's Report for babes. Her in a uniform? That's reason enough to watch this, where do we put this in?" He started looking around for somewhere to put the DVD in. Kohta took the disc and looked at it for second.

"I recognize this, it was supposed to get a second part but never did due to flopping financially and an important staff member's death. Huh, fancy that. Kohta walked to the DVD player and pushed a button before putting it in.

Morita rubbed his hands and opened Hishashi's bag, "okay, let's see what we have here, some sours, chips, kitka- what the? Is this homework?" He dropped the paper he'd started to pull out and dropped the bag "heresy! Who dares soil a party with school work?" He turned his head, switching between the three of us.

Hisashi grabbed the bag and walked to me, "I forgot I was gonna ask you for help," I didn't know he was being serious. "I'm pretty good in most subjects, but English just doesn't click with me," at the sound of that Morita turned his sights directly on me.

"You speak English?" I nodded, and Morita dropped to his knees, clutching the air. "I could've- I- oh, the horror!" He cried to the heavens, before suddenly deflating.

"Weren't you the one that was just calling it heresy?" Kohta asked, remote in his hand and sitting on one of the chairs, waiting for things to get started. Hisashi snorted at that comment, while Morita just recoiled at being called out.

"Well-"

"Not when it benefits you right?" Hisashi interrupted, causing Morita to quickly draw back again.

"Look guys, the movie's starting!" He changed subjects and zoomed to a different chair. Evidently Kohta had started the movie, though whether it was to save Morita or not was unknown. Hisashi decided to let it go and chose a seat as well. I sat next to him.

"Can I see the paper?" I asked, holding my hand out. Hisashi handed it over and I started to observe it. None of the questions were multiple choice, most of them were free answer, with a few being fill in the blank. Thinking about it now, I'd had trouble teaching my sister before, and I'd known what I was talking about through and through then. Now, I didn't really know how to help him when I could only really understand one language in the first place.

"Sorry, dude, I don't think I can help, I'm not all that good at teaching," I meant it too, maybe I could try to learn or something? Regardless, I saw my words didn't really phase him.

"It's alright, maybe we could try later," he dropped it back into the bag and pulled out a drink, one of those sodas with the marbles. He popped the marble in and waited for a sec before taking a sip.

I turned to the movie and decided to watch. It was odd, the movie was kind of hammy and hearing all that from 'English' actors wasn't something I was used to. There were bad movies and the like that had that kind of thing back in America, but I hadn't really seen any of them except for the first Power Rangers movie, and besides that, it was a different kind of ham then what was here. Nonetheless, it was weird seeing what was basically this universe's Highschool of the Dead. The protagonist was a second year named Mamoru Igou who had a childhood girlfriend named Rin Sakamoto (played by Aya Ueto, as Morita had excitedly pointed out) that had gotten with him after dumping their other childhood friend Takashi Suwabe. Takashi is sulking about their break up and all that jazz when he sees some of the faculty being chomped and decides to tell his friends about it. On their way to the rooftop Takashi gets bitten because he decided hand to hand combat was the best way to deal with zombies that were physically superior to you in every way except speed.

Other than the switched places, so far the only difference in the stories was that the girls didn't look like they'd stuffed water balloons down their shirts, though there was still plenty of fanservice and all that, which Morita was just eating up.

"Hah! Deserved to be eaten, what kinda dumbass fights zombies with his hands?" Morita mocked, looking at the actor dying and begging his friend to kill him before he turned.

"That definitely wasn't a smart thing to do," Kohta said, though without the derision Morita had given.

Hisashi nodded and watched as Mamoru smashed his friend's head in, with Rin screaming and crying on the corpse. Hey, at least he wouldn't get up again. "What kind of weapon would you guys use?" I asked, the one thing I could thank ROB for was that watching this movie could at least help me throw around scenarios.

"I'd like something cool, like a shotgun, or maybe a chainsaw!" Morita mimicked revving up a chainsaw and hacking zombies to pieces.

"Maybe a Springfield M1-A1," Kohta said, going off into Wonderland at the thought of having his hands on it.

Hisashi made a humming sound, pondering what he would use. "Maybe a dagger? Or some blunt weapon? I'm not sure, what about you?"

I waited for a few seconds before saying anything, "A cestus or bow for me," I'd settled on those as they required little maintenance but would undoubtedly be effective, and quiet.

After the round of answers we looked back to the movie. Seeing that Mamoru and Rin were just starting to head back down. I wonder how much of the story this thing would cover.

They'd cut Shido out thankfully, though thinking about him made me wonder how I was going to stop him, he'd been the reason for a lot of deaths and I would rather gargle nails then let him mess things up for everyone. I'd have to make a note to think about that later, because right now was relaxation time, even if seeing a zombie movie was in poor taste.

Instead they'd just made it so the bus Ayaka (Shizuka, back breakers and everything) had been driving was old and broke down, forcing them all to get out and go on foot. Them going as a group cut out the part with the guy groping Rei/Rin and some other stuff, though they did have the part with the motorcycle and Ayaka and Mamoru going ahead to find her friend's house.

After arriving they found the guns, though the Kohta expy wasn't as gun crazy as him, followed by rescuing Alice and then the movie ended. Wow, that was before the anime ended, too bad, I wanted to see some of the stuff past that.

We all stretched as the credits rolled and started to crumple up some of the trash.

"That was pretty good," Morita said, smiling and nodding his head as if he'd said something profound.

"I'm sure that has nothing to do with all the shots of exposed girls," Hisashi said, throwing what he'd gathered into a trash can. Morita sputtered at the accusation.

"Pretty sure I stepped in some of his drool," I said, wiping my foot with some of the trash for show.

"I don't think the maids will really like that, you should probably see a doctor about producing that many fluids" Kohta joined in, saying his piece with a straight face. Morita's continuous attempts to defend himself were ignored as everyone laughed.

"Hey, I saw you eyeing them too Hirano so don't act innoce- did you say maids?" Morita suddenly brushed off our jabs as he focused on Kohta's statement.

He blinked at Morita's sudden spike in interest. "Yes." Morita perked up even more at that.

"Purely for curiosity's sake, do you have any hot ones?" His excitement could be felt.

"No," and then it came crashing down. Morita sagged and let out a sigh.

"Come on man, you have maids, but none of them look good? Do they at least call you master?" Kohta shook his head and Morita deflated even more. "What's the point of having them then?"

"Cleaning, possibly. Just a wild guess," Hisashi dryly said, smirking slightly at his friend's antics.

"Housework in general, maybe," I added, continuing the cycle, now all we needed was for Kohta to say something and the cycle would be complete.

"Maybe you should go to the doctor for more than just the fluids if you are asking what the point of a maid is," There it is! Nice one Kohta, a return to what he'd been trying to escape from!

Morita raised his hands in surrender and started to back away. "Take it easy there guys, my fragile ego can only take so much." We all laughed again, making to leave the room.

"No, but seriously, please get a hot maid."

The shindig had gone in much the same fashion for the next few hours, we'd even met his butler, the smooth voiced man from before, whose name was Akifumi, before Hisashi and I decided to head home. Hisashi because his parents were expecting him home by tomorrow and he didn't want to intrude, and me because I was planning on doing things tomorrow. Morita had stayed behind as he didn't have any obligations or preparations to take care of.

I got to my place around 11:56, turning my key in the door I stepped inside and saw just how much of a contrast it was to the houses I'd gone to the past few days. Dark and lonely, filled with reminders of the inevitable nightmare to come.

"Home sweet home."

[3rd] {Hisashi}

Hisashi stepped into his house and took off his shoes, hanging his coat up and walking inside, he didn't hear any voices so his sister's friends were either gone or asleep. Both were fine with him as long as they didn't bother him. He walked into the living room and the lights suddenly flicked on.

"Merry Christmas!" His parents shouted, both waving their arms with smiles on their faces.

"I thought you weren't coming home until Sunday," He walked to his parents and gave them both hugs.

"We thought so too, but we finished early and decided to surprise you," His father explained. His grip on Hisashi was firm and he looked proudly at his son. "You're in your first year of high school and as such, closer to becoming a man, so I got you a gift to represent that, now go on! Open it!" Hisashi turned to the gifts on the table and made for the one his dad had pointed to. He tore off the wrapping and his face went pale as he saw what was on top.

Condoms.

His mother looked taken aback and smacked her husband "Hisao!" Her face was getting red, though not with embarrassment.

He laughed and waved off their expressions "Don't worry, Minami, that was a joke, look," He reached for the condoms and opened up the package, inside were a bunch of chocolates. He guffawed when he saw the new looks on their faces and put the container aside, "Now! Here's the real gift!" He pulled it out, his face becoming serious as he did. It was a knife. "This was given to me by my father when I was your age, he said it's a sign of a man's responsibility, to protect that which he loves, I don't expect you to start swinging at anyone that gives your mom the stink eye or anything, it's just a sign of my trust." He handed the knife to Hisashi who took it with wide eyes, he hadn't known about that.

His mother huffed as she went to get her gift. "Here, don't worry, I haven't stuck anything in there that would give us a scare like that," she gave her husband a pointed look. Hisashi opened the gift and looked inside. It was a photo of him, Takashi, and Rei, with a plaque of his achievements in Karate. "Thank you." He smiled at both of his parents before giving them both a hug.

He'd had fun at the party but he'd expected to just get home and deal with his sister's friends hitting on him or something. Instead, they were here, that alone would've been enough, but then they gave him these gifts with such importance to him.

He couldn't have asked for anything more.

{Kohta}

Kohta was happy Morita had stayed over, with his parents gone and no one but the helpers around, the place felt especially empty. His presence and bright nature helped a lot in that regard. "Hey Hirano! I think um, Aki, Akifumi was calling you! Said he was in the living room" He popped up in the doorway, evidently just finishing his bath by the wet hair and towel he was carrying.

"Coming," he stepped outside and headed over to the living room. As he got there he saw Akifumi standing in front of a large box. "What's going on?"

"A gift from your parent's sir," Akifumi stepped aside and presented it.

"Really?" He looked at the box and went brushed his hand against it, noticing there was a letter addressed to him.

 _We're sorry we couldn't make it, Kohta, our shows have been going on for a while and we wanted to wrap this up a while ago but there is good news._

 _We'll definitely be home by the 29th! And your grandparents will be joining! I know it's been a while since we've all been together, so I hope you're_

 _looking forward to it! More than that however we have a second gift for you, hopefully it gets there before we do so you know we're coming._

 _That's it, see you soon kiddo._

Kohta looked at the box again and started to reach for it. He opened the box.

Oh. Oh wow.

He really hoped they would get here sooner so he could thank them for this.

{Saeko}

Since her father had come home Saeko hadn't gone for a night run once. Instead opting to spend time with her father, catching up on her school life and his experiences on his trip. They'd already made plans to go to the nearby shrine on the first and her spirits were high.

"Tell me daughter, has anything interesting happened while I was gone, outside school of course," Her father waited as she poured him a drink before bowing in thanks and taking a sip.

"Yes, father, during my runs I have found someone interesting."

"Oh?" Her father quirked an eyebrow and turned to face her directly "do tell."

"He joined me sometime in October on my runs, though not intentionally. At first I assumed him to bear ill will as it seemed too conveniently timed, then as time passed he continued to be there. Just recently he has managed to keep up with me for the whole of my run, despite falling behind in less than a minute when he first started." She paused to wait for her father's reaction, wishing for him to say something so she could reveal the second part.

"That is most certainly intriguing, from what I recall, no one has been able to match you since elementary school." His face left its seemingly permanent scowl (it was not his intention to look as such) and lifted in what she could tell was an expression of approval. "And you say he has only been practicing for the past two months?"

"That is right father." She dipped her head as she confirmed this.

"Most impressive," His face lifted again, this time to smile. "I am glad you have found a worthy rival, it has been too long since I've seen you so happy to go against another." He continued drinking, sighing in contentment at the taste.

"That is not all father," She began, getting excited to present the second part, Hideki raised both brows now, wondering what was to come next. "As I congratulated him for a job well done, he returned my gesture, and it was revealed that his mental capabilities are just as impressive, though he did speak quite freely.

Hideki nodded, "Honorable and sharp as well," He looked to Saeko, approval radiating from him. "I am not sure you could have found a more worthy rival within this town."

"My thoughts exactly father!" They were both beaming now, happy for her discovery. Her father suddenly rose.

"Speaking of worthiness, I have a gift for you." He went to a cabinet behind him and pulled out a long box.

"Here daughter, I feel now is the appropriate time to give you this." He placed the box upon their kotatsu, taking his seat again as he slid it towards her.

Saeko stared at it for a second before Hideki nodded at her to open it. With baited breath and trembling hands she reached for the box. As she opened it her hand went to her mouth. Inside the box was a bokken, shaped like the family blade but composed of wood. Which wasn't to say it was any lesser in appearance. It had a curve to it, leading to what would be a sharp tip regardless of the material it was made off and the body glistened as if it was a blade of metal. As a final touch the name Busujima was carved along the bottom of the handle in elegant handwriting. She looked at her father, speechless.

"This was made when your mother and I saw you first take up the sword." He started to explain, "We thought to give it to you sometime during junior or senior high, as a replacement until you were ready to take the true responsibility of the Busujima name." As Saeko continued to stare at him, his face returned to its default position. "Do not prove me wrong with hesitation Saeko, take the sword and cherish it." She was snapped out of her reverie and nodded quickly before picking up the bokken with a sort of reverence. A gift that was 12 years in the making, from not only her father, but her late mother. She bowed deeply as she lifted it with both hands. "This daughter of yours will do her best to honor the gift her parents have bestowed upon her." As she rose, she couldn't help the smile that came to her face. Looking at her father revealed the same could be said for him as he nodded and grinned.

They softly smiled in silence. Able and willing to let their happiness permeate the room.

[1st]

Since I got home I'd found it harder and harder to avoid thinking about my family back home. Every year we would go from place to place, Nana's, Aunt Terry's etc. etc. chatting, eating and just generally being happy.

Not doing that made me feel surprisingly empty. Hanging out with the others yesterday and today had helped me ignore it, but now that I was home alone, I couldn't help but think about it.

I should've stayed over at Kohta's.

After tossing and turning for a bit I decided to look myself up, see if the other me was happily spending time with family at least.

I turned my laptop on and looked up my name. My eyes opened as wide as they could go when I saw an article about me.

 _Small in Body, But Not in Mind_

 _This year's spelling bee went to a 4th grader from Texas, Timothy Vega, 10, managed to take it all home when the_

 _runner up, Kavya Shivashankar, misspelled the word menhir, following up with the word Laodicean. For his efforts_

 _he received over $40,000 in cash and prizes. As-_

I stopped reading the article, I remembered the spelling bee. Back home, I'd lost at my elementary school. Clearly that hadn't been the case for this version's me, so good, for, him. My thoughts trailed off.

Looking at the date of the article I realized that I was only 10. 10.

I was going to die. A little, bright eyed, me was going to die. And he would be 11 when the zombies came.

I've always had a problem of being unattached to things that weren't of concern to me personally, and sometimes even if it did. When I'd thought about zombified children walking around, reaching out with little rotted hands, I hadn't given it much thought. They would be dead, so would billions of others, it wasn't much of a difference.

I was wrong.

Seeing this made me realize something, all those dead children meant something more than just that. They meant that these kids had died, unknowing and afraid of people they knew and didn't alike, grasping, pulling, tearing at them, and unlike teenagers and adults; they couldn't do anything to stop it.

With this realization came the memory of a fanfiction I'd read where someone else had been thrown into this world. When he looked himself up, he'd found that his ancestor had died in an accident before he had the chance for kids, so he didn't exist.

Thinking on the confused pain the younger me would go through as people tore at him, I knew that would've been preferable to this.

My mind went blank.


	5. Chapter 5: Winter III

V

[]

Well, even the anime pope can be wrong sometimes.

Come here! Come here Sammy! Oh, that's a good boy! Who's my beautiful boy?

What is up, my dude?

Not much, my guy.

Is that a cut? How'd I not notice that?

Who am I? Am I not unique? Maybe I'm not here at all

Hmhmhmhm blinding us with lies the hmhm of us all

That ain't a knife, this is a knife.

Yes! Yes! I did it, never playing this game again! Lingering Will? More like Lingering Pain from dying so much

That didn't even make sense

Can't all be winners

Finally, they're bringing back my man, door-kun!

o0o

[1st]

I didn't remember opening my eyes, nor looking around the room, they just were as far as my memory was concerned.

I'd only been in a hospital as a patient once, and I'd been awake at the time. I'd ended up spending the night over for them to run some tests on me, but even then I'd expected to wake up there. Now I suddenly found myself staring around the room, taking in the details. A curtain to divide the place, sink to my left and some basic conveniences.

What happened?

Did I get into an accident?

I tried rooting through my mind, attempting to pull something up but coming up blank. Worse than that, trying made me feel weak and suddenly caused my vision to sway. Thinking wasn't a good idea right now.

Why was I so cold? And weak? I didn't- what?

The door opened and in stepped a man with a coat, couldn't tell how old he was supposed to be.

"Oh, you're awake," He walked over to me. "I'm Ojima, Daisuke Ojima, do you know what's going on?"

My body fell back. My vision was blurring but I could see the man rush over as things started going dark. I. ?

o0o

What's going on?

o0o

I was still trembling, I was going to die. I couldn't do anything about it, not that I could think of anyways. Try to take a plane to America and save him? I mean me? What would I say? I mean, protecting myself and my family was definitely more important but something about the idea of going over was wrong. Every time I tried thinking about it my whole body seemed to vibrate. But how could I leave myself to die like that? Could I trust everyone to not die and protect each other? Maybe, Ian was already in high school and would be ripped by now, not to say that that meant we'd be able to live no matter what, but I'm sure it counted for something right?

Right?

I knew mom and dad would try their hardest and that dad had experience with brawls as a kid but would that be enough? Would what I'm doing now be enough?

Thinking about those that would die made me doubt it for some reason.

The only option was to live for them, if I couldn't know whether they would live or die then I would work so that I could live enough for all of us.

I needed to be stronger, to carry on for them.

I wouldn't let those mindless mockeries of life take everything.

o0o

My eyes opened again, still in the same room, though there were people here.

Who?

Oh, the Kouno's. Hello there.

"Tom-chan! What happened?" Ayame came to my side, face scrunched with worry and... sadness. I think.

"What?" I mumbled, just saying that felt like I'd just pulled a wire brush through my throat. I felt like something had sucked all the moisture out of me. Even before whatever had happened my mouth had gotten dry rather easily, a few minutes was all that was necessary, it wasn't hard to imagine this happening in anywhere from a day to a week.

Ayame cocked her head, a bit of confusion joining the worry. She turned her head to her husband, "what did he just say?"

Satoru shrugged and turned to his kids, "do any of you know what he just said?"

Suzume looked like she was about to say something when the guy I'd seen from earlier stepped back inside, "please," he started, moving to ease Ayame away from me. "He just woke up, please give him some space." Ayame relented and slowly shuffled away from me. What was going on?

"Mr. Vega," he said, stopping for a few seconds before turning to the kids. "Can any of you speak English?"

Suzume raised her hand, "A little," she pursed her lips while staring at me. "Not much though, I've only just started really learning last year."

The man nodded and waved her over, "that'll have to do until we can get a translator over, I'll just try to explain what happened and then we can expand on that, if it's alright with you, that is?" He looked to her, quirking a brow at Suzume. She stared for a few more seconds, then to her parents, who nodded. She looked to the doctor and nodded. "Good, well, let's go a sentence at time so you can take your time." She nodded again. "I am Ojima Daisuke, your doctor, you collapsed from moderate malnutrition as well as energy deficiency and have been out for 3 days."

Suzume pointed to the doctor, "Ojima Daisuke, doctor, faint form, from ma- malr- hunger, and tired, 3 days," Oh. I guess that explained why I felt so weak.

o0o

[3rd]

Kei Ito was a nurse at Tokonosu General. His shifts usually started before 4 pm and ended after 2 and he'd fallen into a sort of routine since he first got the job about 4 months ago.

Then his newest patient came in.

Kei had been hired on account of his credentials, not just his competence in medicine but the fact he spoke multiple languages, French, English and Japenese, specifically. Everything else being equal, or at least close enough to not really matter, he'd been brought on. He hadn't really needed them to any major degree thus far other than the occasional drunk or elderly tourist. But when the man came in looking hollow and on the brink of death, he was suddenly very busy.

The patient's name was Thomas Vega, he was a foreigner that worked at a nearby store and had apparently collapsed while on a run, in front of a random bystander that called for help. Said person left after seeing that he was being taken care of.

Every time Kei had come into his room to take care of him and talk in case he woke up (though Kei had doubted it would happen soon from his apparent condition) he felt off. As if being watched, only to find that whenever he turned to the door or patient that no one was watching. What was worse was that at some point when he was taking care of the man, regardless of when he came in, he would hear him muttering, although he never responded when someone tried to talk to him.

That and other little things had added up so that Kei was always wary and hesitant to go whenever he was due to check on him.

When Kei had been called in a few minutes early for work he hadn't really minded, his life outside of work wasn't all that time consuming and anytime this happened it meant they needed the extra hands. When he got to the hospital however he was immediately called over to Thomas's room.

He squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of the room's atmosphere.

Upon arriving he found family surrounding him, though not his if the radically different features meant anything. As he looked to the bed he found him awake, staring at him. Kei wasn't sure if it was his experience with Thomas so far or not but his gaze disturbed him; his face was blank, mouth set in an almost unnoticeable frown, hair casting a slight shadow over his eyes which themselves were droopy, with little to seemingly no light bouncing off. This came together in a way he'd never seen before, as if he were still unconscious, the only thing keeping him from thinking that might be the case was that he slowly blinked at Kei.

Kei turned to the doctor, Ojima raised an eyebrow at his expression but didn't comment on it, intending to get to business. "Sorry for calling you in early, Ito-san but we needed you to translate since he has awakened and no one here speaks enough English to make him fully aware of what's going on," Ojima turned to a girl from the visitors and dipped his head "thank you for assistance until this point Kouno-san." The girl nodded back and left it at that.

"Now let us get to business," Ojima took a few steps closer to the patient and sat close to him before waiting for Kei to do the same. He followed and tried to get past his wariness in order to act professionally, nodding as he did so.

"First, I would like to know if you are okay with these people bearing witness, they were listed under emergency contacts but confirmation is still required." Kei copied his sentence with a second of delay, creating an odd 'echo' of sorts. Thomas nodded. "As I said, you have been out for few days due to malnutrition. When you got here you were in a poor state, low blood sugar as well as body temperature, reduced muscle and tissue mass, and some difficulty breathing. By themselves, they wouldn't be too bad, but you were only receiving a fraction of the energy and nutrients your body needed, so everything has just piled together and created a mess. As soon as we made sure you weren't in immediate danger from the usual suspects of collapse we found the problem and put you on a drip, although that was only for until you woke up. As such you will need to rest and eat regularly for the next couple of weeks." Everyone noticed Thomas suddenly looking stricken at that, the first sign of any of this getting through to him, they all looked curious at that, with the elders thinking about asking why he reacted so badly before Ojima continued on. "The good news is that most of the problems, minor as they are, can be taken care of at home." Thomas seemed to relax a bit at that and started to sink into the bed, his eyes showing that he was struggling to stay awake.

Ojima pursed his lips and thought for a second, "I was thinking he should go back to sleep soon but I suppose that has been decided for us anyways. Ito-san, I've already checked his equipment so you can just go ahead and check on Oosawa," Kei nodded and started to head out, excusing himself as he passed by the family.

Back to it.

o0o

[1st]

Duct tape, the miracle item, able to do anything ranging from holding together a junker to making clothes. At the moment however, I was using it to fletch arrows, I'd started even before I'd decided to use a bow instead of arrows, figuring it would be good practice in case I ran out of ammo or found myself without a gun. I'd gotten kind of good with it in a month or so before I realized that I'd only been using feathers. Granted, I was planning on using them most of the time as they seemed to be the best of the cheap things I could get, which wasn't to say that I would always have an abundance of them.

So, I decided I was going to learn multiple ways, the one I was currently working on was duct tape. When I'd first looked up ways to fletch arrows myself I hadn't really thought of how effective it could be, which I felt rather dumb now that I thought about it.

I had started physical training first before anything else under the assumption that most of my time fighting the ghoulies would be close range, even if that was something I very much did not want.

I looked at my handiwork, decent. Into the pile it went, I would test it out later, among its 2 dozen or so brethren, then strip it so I didn't have to order hundreds of arrows.

On to the next one.

o0o

Solar cells. Check.

Saw. Check.

Soldering stuff. Check.

Board. Check.

Multimeter. Check.

Protective glasses. Check.

Now to make the panel.

o0o

I'd been getting more tired this past week or so. The fact that it was happening right when I started being more active was not lost on me so I'd started eating more as soon as I'd picked up on it, yet I was still tired. Odd, but not much of a problem, that just meant I needed more. I could take care of that; my only hope was that I wouldn't eat up my funds or have to cut back on working out.

o0o

Swipe.

Grimace.

Adjust grip and stance.

Again.

And Again. And Again.

Not good enough.

Not yet.

Only three and a half months.

Switch hands.

Swipe.

Adjust grip and stance.

Again.

o0o

I woke up again. My mind felt clearer, not completely, but it was progress.

Thoughts were swimming through my head though I latched onto a few in particular.

I'd been out for a few days, lost progress and had to rest for a few weeks. The loss of time and physicality weren't too bad, I could easily bypass that by working out. Except that I couldn't.

I'm such an idiot. How did I let this happen? How did-

"Oh! Hello there!" I turned to the voice I'd heard.

Of course.

Standing in the door way was the doctor from earlier and one of the people I'd almost been counting on meeting at some point or another.

Shizuka Marikawa bounded in, face lit up for no particular reason, "Shizuka-chan, he can't understand you." Ojima came in after her, albeit in a much more subdued manner, expression and shaking head showing a familiarity with her antics.

Shizuka toned down her excitement and came to a stop a bit too close for comfort before quickly snapping out a bow. "Shizuka Marikawa, nice to meet you!" She smiled as she looked to me, speaking in slightly accented English, I don't remember her knowing anything other than Japanese, though to be fair they never really had any reason to focus on that. "I'm studying to be a doctor and will be here for you until you check out!" I thought she was trying to become a nurse. Huh.

Behind her, Ojima cleared his throat, "Shizuka-chan, please tell him the good news."

"Oh! You've been recovering quicker than we expected and should be able to leave tomorrow or the day after, though you will still need to rest and go to your local doctor for checkups as well as discuss your diet with an advisor." She tapped her mouth repeatedly. Apparently checking to see if she forgot something. "Ah!" She clapped her hands together, "do you know what day it is?"

I blinked, when did I pass out? Come to think of it, when was the last time I looked at the date? Christmas? New Year's?

I shook my head, even if I felt better I still didn't trust myself to speak clearly. "Today is Friday, January 29th, it's been a day since you last woke up." A day?

"The people that came to see you left some stuff," She pointed to a counter next to me. Most of it was cards but there was a Gameboy SP on the corner closest to me. I reached out for it and turned it on, skipping past the logos brought me to the start up screen for Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, not that it said as such.

I wonder if they'd heard when I was getting out. Either way I was going to thank them, hopefully I could say it to whoever actually left it here. I loved this game.

I hoped not being able to read anything wouldn't be a game breaker.

"That's all there is to say so I'll just take my leave now, see you in a bit!" Shizuka waved as she left, thankfully not minding that I hadn't actually said anything and Ojima had apparently left sometime after Shizuka had begun explaining things.

I looked to the Gameboy in my hands and looked at the counter to check if there was a charger included. Seeing that there was I looked at the save files available and saw a blank spot, whether that had been there or one of the Kouno's had deleted a file for me was unknown and irrelevant.

I started a new game. Letsa go.

Heh.

o0o

As it turns out, I remembered enough about the game for my lingual situation to not be a problem.

On the other hand, it was still quite the hindrance for most other things. Everything I did nowadays sans thinking was in Japanese so being unable to understand it was a problem to say the least.

Thankfully, Kei—my nurse—spoke enough English to keep the situation from being entirely unpleasant, even if he seemed to have some kind of aversion to being around me.

Nonetheless, things went as Shizuka had said, I was released 2 days later. I'd been given more meals than was the norm while there and as a result was feeling a bit better than when I'd first woken up. When I was leaving I'd thought that I would have trouble getting home as the Kouno's were most likely working, so I didn't feel comfortable asking them to bring me home. Luckily, I was saved from having to make any decisions when Shizuka told me my place was close to the school she worked at and that she wouldn't mind taking me on her way. I checked the time to make sure she wasn't actually going out of her way, 7:33. I'd learned the time that school started for Fujimi was 8:25 from Naoya when I'd tried making small talk a while ago. Something I'd been fairly jealous of at the time and still kinda was as school ever starting past 7:15 had been but a dream for me during high school, at least that meant Shizuka was genuinely heading there.

As we approached her car I saw how small it was, I remember that being mentioned in the manga but couldn't remember what it was called, not that it mattered I suppose. We got in and she started it up. "Don't worry about directions, I made sure to ask!" She pumped her free arm, the other turning the key. I just nodded. Looking around the inside brought a small smile to my face as I imagined everyone trying to squeeze inside, weapons included. The smile fell as I thought about zombies closing in on them while doing so. Then I remembered that I only had two months and some change before everything went down, and I'd erased an unknown amount of physical progress by being overzealous.

I heaved a sigh. Suddenly I was glad that I'd taken all that extra work last month, I had no doubt that I'd be almost literally eating through it.

"Vega-san?" I turned to Shizuka, her eyes were on the road, but I saw her brows slightly scrunching up. "What's wrong?"

"I have a lot of stuff to make up," I was never really the type of person to say 'nothing' when something was wrong, despite how often I heard it from others, even if the person asking was a complete stranger. I figured the worst that could happen was that it would be ignored and I would have at least vented a bit.

"Eh? I though you weren't in school?" Shizuka looked at me for a second, lidded eyes raised slightly in confusion.

"I don't" I hoped that she'd say something that would give me an idea of what to do.

"Then what are you preparing for?" She tilted her head, twisting her arms to take a turn.

"I was trying to get in shape," Saying it without the context made the problem sound a lot less, heavy I guess.

She slowed the car down and hummed for a few seconds, either trying to recall the directions or what to say. When she started moving again I realized it was the former. She looked me up and down, "your upper body is bigger, I think you should spread out the areas of your work out." It was? I looked myself over, I had never really had to worry about that. Then I let out a short laugh at the mental image of me looking like Johnny Bravo. I laughed again thinking of myself acting the way he did.

"There's a handsome guy in my house, never mind, it's only me." I resisted the urge to pose like him as I said that, figuring I was already probably gonna weird her out by saying that out of the blue, though the urge was rather strong.

Shizuka giggled, "What was that?"

"It was a line from I show I watched when I was younger," I smiled as I recalled the stuff I used to watch. I felt much better now, thankful for how easily I was entertained.

Shizuka noticed my mood picking up and smiled. After that we just talked a bit. I could think about what to do when I got home, for now I'd just try and enjoy talking with her.

o0o

Two days later and I found myself just as clueless as before. I'd spent some time thinking about where I stood financially, the short of it was that I wasn't in danger, at least when it came to providing for myself, and barring a massive rise in inflation I could even get most of the stuff that I still wanted; key word being most. Though I'd spent some time working extra it didn't change the fact that I'd missed more time than I'd spent trying to cover, not to mention the fact that I'd have to stay at home for at the very least a few days to recover (though I expected anytime less than two weeks to be unlikely).

On the plus side I was starting to pick things up again.

For whatever reason I hadn't really taken the time to think about why either problems that had risen recently. Both my rapid loss and retrieval of Japanese and my ungodly quick metabolism. Now seemed like as good a time as any, if not to give my mind a chance to recuperate from its plans to recover my lost muscle mass than to at the very least to make sure this didn't happen again. Collapsing in front of a bunch of zombies was bad for reasons that needn't be specified and not being able to understand what other people, while not as objectively bad was still something I absolutely did not want.

First, Japanese. Thinking about my whole time here I also lost my ability to understand when I just woke up and when I was bone tired, add that to me waking up in the hospital a few weak hits away from comatose with the same problem meant: my ability to understand Japanese in any capacity (as well as possibly other languages though I hadn't tested that out yet) was tied to my physical health with a small connection to how energetic I felt. I think. I rolled that conclusion around in my head for a bit. Was there another way I could think of that made sense when thinking about both situations? Admittedly, putting pieces of evidence together and coming up with a sound conclusion wasn't really my forte, so nothing else came to mind.

Second, My crazy metabolism. This one was easier as the problem started when I'd pushed myself; for the two odd months I'd been working out beforehand everything had been fine so that meant the problem was in fact the increased strain, meaning working out harder meant I needed to eat more. I suppose that one wasn't really a problem that needed uncovering since it was so obvious, even if the amount needed was way more than I'd expected, and I couldn't really tell if the results had reflected my needs since I was now weaker than before, I hoped so at least.

Regardless of how obvious it was I was still glad I'd taken the time to think this through.

Although that still left the workout problem.

Suddenly, I got it. I could still go for what most people considered dangerous and I'd be able to feel the effects quicker than normal, both the improvements and tiredness. That meant I could just find an amount of food and vitamins I was comfortable with buying for the duration of my time here and just cap off the increase when I started to feel weaker.

It was amazing what actually sitting down and thinking could do, it made me realize just how poor my planning up until this point had been. Back home I'd never planned through anything, and though I knew others that did that, they were all undoubtedly smarter/better at thinking on their feet than I was. The only reason I'd made it through high school was because of how laughably easy it was to do so as long as you could rub two brain cells together. I'd slept through classes, hardly bothered with notes and neglected to turn in large chunks of work. As things were, I was sure there were many improvements that could be made to my plans and now was definitely the time to do so. If I tired myself out thinking I could just work on the crafts aspect of things or watch TV, maybe at the same time if I could split my focus well enough.

I sighed in contentment. Even if there was possibly a lot of thinking ahead for the next week or so, at least I'd sorted through my thoughts on some things.

I got up from the couch I was lying on and stretched, hearing and certainly feeling pops from head to toe. I would celebrate with a meal, then I'd get to work.

I looked around the apartment, making sure that the only things in the room were those that wouldn't be too out of place. For the things that might raise questions I made sure to have excuses ready, half truths, never lies; I wasn't 100% sure I could convincingly make those. I made another trip around the house, nodding in satisfaction once I was sure nothing was out of place. The decision I'd made to not purchase everything at once was one I kind of regretted but there wasn't really much I could do for that.

There was a knock at the door.

"I hope I don't make a fool of myself," I muttered to myself as I went to the door, despite the fact I had been living by self for a few months and I'd already met my Dietary Advisor—a well-dressed man in his 30s or 40s named Shoji Tanabe—I still felt nervous. I looked through just to make sure it was my DA and unlocked the door as I confirmed it. Here goes.

 _Hello, good to see you again, Vega-san. Are you feeling well?_ The words were written in English on a pad. Wasn't expecting that. When I'd first talked to him it had been through Kei, who translated for both of us, I'd just expected Shoji to bring along a translator this time. Seeing him writing made me wonder why he hadn't just done that in the first place, before realizing it might've been because it was quicker for Kei to do it.

I waved him inside before speaking "I am doing fine," I closed the door as his face registered shock at me being able to communicate with him. "When I was in the hospital I was not able to remember how to speak all that well, I do not really know how that works but I can get most simple sentences now." The shock quickly wore off and he nodded, a small smile on his face, probably because of how much easier this just became. I headed over to the table in my dining room and sat down, motioning for him to join me.

"Well then," He started, sitting down and placing his hands on the table. "Let's get started."

o0o

Contrary to what I'd expected I was cleared to work starting tomorrow, I called the Kouno's up to tell them the news and asked who had given me the Gameboy so I could thank them, they told me that Aoi had given it to me since he hadn't used it for a while and that they could thank him for me and that they wanted me to wait until Monday to come in. I knew they were already aware of my situation so I figured trying to argue about my financial state wouldn't really work and decided to let it go. At the very least that would give me some extra time to spend just relaxing or planning before I started to pick things up in order to make up for the lost time. Pushing that aside the situation made me aware of the fact that the whole health thing was apparently double edged, though I'd found the cons before the pros. As long as my body had the appropriate nutrients, any normal health problems would be quickly taken care of; definitely something to be happy about. I relaxed into the couch. Since I knew what caused my problems I just had to precede as I'd done before this whole thing started, I just had to pick up once I reached close to original conditions.

This week had helped me realize that the time I had spent thinking was vastly dwarfed by the amount of time I spent getting myself physically ready, despite the fact that all that time standing and mindlessly going about tasks was perfect for going over things, whether to add them to my list of preparations or tweak aspects that I was already working on, I had instead spent my time thinking of songs or scenarios that still wouldn't happen, continuing my long tradition of daydreaming when I should be doing other things. Nothing like sitting around without any other options than thinking to make you realize how badly you were managing your already limited time.

I wiped my face, though I was resolute on spending my time better now that I'd missed out on an indeterminate amount of time working myself half to death, I had to make sure to keep it to a certain level, something I wasn't really sure I was capable of, back home I'd either worked hard the whole time until something was done—needless to say, a bad idea at this point—or I'd work until I lost interest, whether through it being to hard or just wearing out my intrigue, at which point whatever I'd been working on would stay unfinished until the end of time.

Guess now was as good of a time as ever to learn.

o0o

Work, as it turns out, was only marginally less busy than Christmas time had been when I came back. "I guess I can see why they would want me to wait another day," I said to no one in particular.

"Ah! Vega-san, help!" I heard a weak plea for help and turned to the voice, seeing Naoya overwhelmed by the number of people here. I can only imagine how badly the poor kid had fared during the Holiday season.

Making my way through the people getting their things, I noticed a large number of them were girls. What was going on?

I made it to the counter and went to a register next to him, seeing a chunk of the people waiting in line move from his register to mine.

I was about to glance at him and ask what the situation was all about when first person in line placed their stuff on the counter in front of me. I glanced down at the stuff and took a look at it. A bag of chips, some candy and a bag of chocolates. I glanced at the date on the display to make sure I was close, February 8th. I'd forgotten about Valentine's.

Quickly doing what I needed to, I handed the bag to the girl and wished her luck, she nodded and left.

At least I kinda understood now I guess. Still didn't know why there were so many people here, I know anime wasn't really the best thing to base this on but- actually I guess it was. Regardless, I though most girls would want to give a handmade chocolate to who they liked, unless these were just friendship chocolates or whatever they were called.

The next time someone came up with one of those packages I looked a bit more carefully, the packaging didn't look all that much like a 'here you go', general brand kind of chocolate, and they were only getting one, so I guess it was personalized? But who made them? And how long did it take to make this many?

I guess I'd ask Naoya later, hopefully he knew. Even if he didn't I could just ask whichever of the Kouno's came here first.

"Oh~?" I focused on the new speaker, seeing Rei and a friend over where the chocolates were.

I wonder who those were for, kappa.

"What else were you planning on doing?" The girl next to Rei asked teasingly, getting closer to her and poking at her sides.

"Nothing!" Rei said, trying her best to seem stern as her friend continued prodding, "I was just planning on giving him these and hanging out!"

"Heh~?" Her friend's smirk grew, "Nothing else~?" I could feel the lewd thoughts radiating off of her.

"No! Why are we talking about this? Is this why you asked to come with me?"

"Maybe," The girl stopped her teasing as they approached the counter, evidently not wanting a stranger to hear them (not that it really mattered since they were quite loud) though Rei's face when she stopped in front of me told me she though as much.

No point in humiliating her needlessly, I thought as I silently took her stuff and scanned it. "272 yen," I said neutrally, my natural expression helping in keeping her pride relatively intact. She fished the money out of her bag and handed it to me.

Exact change, what a sweetheart.

"Have a nice day," I bowed and she nodded while turning to leave, her friend seemed to take that as a cue to start talking as she breathed in to let out a string of words. "And good luck," I added, hopefully that would at least keep her friend from saying anything until they left, she started laughing as Rei scrunched up a bit and sped up to leave, her friend following after her when she was done. Good enough.

I'd already rung up the next customer's stuff by the time they were both through the door. Things had slowed down enough for Naoya and I to slow down a bit, something which I could actually hear him being immensely grateful for. "Thank you for coming when you did Vega-san," He gave a weak smile as he said that, apparently actually physically drained from the whole ordeal.

"'s no problem, it is my job after all," I said, though he still wasn't all that comfortable around me, he was at least able to loosen up and lightly joke around now.

"I've been handling that by myself for my last two shifts, so having someone to help is very much welcome." He gave a weak laugh at that and turned back to continue about his business, much more relaxed now that the worst of it was over.

With the silence that followed I started to think about Rei, the fact that she was getting chocolates and not for herself meant that the break up hadn't happened yet. I don't remember the story mentioning when that happened but her being a second year meant it had to happen soon. I couldn't really think of any way to warn them that wouldn't come off as crazy or stalker-ish since all my knowledge could be found with either looking into them as none of it was really private, just not known to the children. The other chunk required coming face to face with the zombies in the case of it not being personal info.

My meeting everyone but Shizuka—and even that was debatable if you really convinced yourself hard enough, something they would doubtlessly do to avoid the uglier truth—could be taken as a calculated action used to get closer to them, the motive would be a mystery, but it was easier to believe then 'I'm from a different dimension where I know things about you' or 'I'm a time traveler from the future where zombies tore down civilization'. This meant that I couldn't really think of any way to help them get out safely other then letting the whole thing run its course as everyone that had made it out of the main cast had done so by staying in relatively the same area before sizing things up as best they could and heading out in pairs; followed up by meeting up later, even if it wasn't on purpose.

Takashi and Rei meanwhile, had similar fiery personalities and would probably react or try to react, immediately, if they didn't outright panic and while Hisashi had a cooler head, not to mention more brains then either of them I wasn't really willing to risk them being in more danger then the original timeline. Hopefully, the similar plot points in the movie and whatever other helpful bits I could sneak in would at least give Hisashi and Kohta (plus Morita) and thus, those they were with, a better chance of survival until I could meet up with them at Shizuka's or somewhere along the way if the odds were in my favor (which I obviously wasn't really counting on).

I just had to hope it would be enough.

o0oo0oo0o

It was such a struggle to get this out. I spent half of the time just trying to finish the hospital part and the day or so right after, everything before and after came relatively easy but I'm still not all that fond of this chapter. Regardless, hope y'all enjoy, later.


	6. Chapter 6: Winter IV

VI

[1st]

Valentine's Day had never really been a huge thing from what I remembered, chocolates wise at least, unless you had a significant other. The only place I'd seen it treated with any weight was manga or anime, I hadn't really been sure if it was as important in real life Japan, and while I still couldn't say that for sure, I could at least say it certainly was for this Japan.

It seemed the deadline for Valentine's drawing closer hadn't been taken all that seriously until the past two days, when all those concerned didn't have the time to try making anymore attempts and folded. While that had been fine with me since I'd gotten used to doing things relatively quickly even before coming here, that didn't mean Naoya had, despite the fact he'd worked here for longer than I had, leading to a longer line for me.

Today being the day before certainly hadn't helped.

Once things relaxed a bit I saw him deflate with relief, "My hands won't stop shaking."

"Is it like this every year?" I couldn't imagine him going through this alone last year.

"I started the month after Valentine's," He said, still trying to get his hands to stop shaking.

"Ah," I said, choosing not to say more in lieu of focusing on work.

The door rang and I went through the usual greetings, only to see that it was Hisashi that had entered, he smiled when he saw me before going about his business, grabbing a bag of chips and a drink. After he grabbed his stuff he came to my register, waiting for the people in front of him to finish up.

"We were planning on hanging out tomorrow if none of us could get dates or anything like that, you in?" He had barely waited for me to start ringing his stuff up before speaking. Even though he didn't specify who 'we' were I already knew who he was talking about: Morita, Kohta and himself; Takashi usually would've been in that group too but we all knew he already had plans.

"Sure, we meeting up at Kohta's? 257 yen, please," I handed him his stuff as he gave me the money. He stepped to the side to let the person behind him up next.

"Probably, Morita said going to hang out anywhere else would just remind him of how lonely he was and at least this way he can pretend we're just hanging as normal," I huffed at that. Morita was the most desperate out of all of us for a relationship of any kind, and so, as deigned by the Comedy Gods, that meant he had the worst luck. I'd heard from Kohta that he'd seen Morita trying to be extra nice to some girls, with results ranging from a polite thank you to a pitying stare at his attempts to cull their favor, I'd even seen him carry some of their things as he passed by the store.

"Alright, just tell me the details later," I waved him off and got back to serving the hordes of people. He followed suit and left, already cracking open his drink while heading outside.

When I had first fainted no one really knew anything except for the Kouno's. Apparently, I'd taken a week off to train more before that happened and no one had heard from me for the duration of my spree. Hisashi had gotten curious about where I was after not hearing or seeing from me for about three weeks and came to the store to ask what happened, only to learn that I'd been hospitalized; by that point I had already gotten home but neither he nor Morita, Kohta or Takashi knew where I lived. They eventually realized the Kouno's, as my employer, probably knew where I lived and decided to ask them. Though that had been before I cleaned up they just shrugged it off as a hobby like Kohta, who had nodded in approval of my seeming dedication to my passion.

I still couldn't understand why I'd worked myself so hard, I could recall the lingering feelings of anger and desperation but the fact that I had disregarded practically everything for survival prowess was odd. It just seemed like another example of how poorly things could've gone at any time until this point due to my lack of planning, but I'd never done something so emotionally fueled before, even as a child. Granted, the situation was certainly heavy enough for a massive reaction, but it still bothered me. Hopefully it would serve as a deterrent for similar reactions should more news blindside me.

I brought my focus back to reality and saw that my hands were reaching out for stuff while no one was there. Looking to the side I saw Naoya smirking a bit as I realized I was caught spacing out. I quickly brought my hands back to my side and cleared my throat.

Nothing to see here, no siree. Just move along with your business and wipe that smirk off your face please.

o0o

When I'd gotten home I had realized that I had a meeting with Shoji about my progress, he had been honestly surprised with how quickly I'd been recovering last week and this one was no different. He'd cleared me for physical labor but I still had to take it easy.

I had gone out and started my run, determined to make up for what was lost. It turns out I'd been pushed back to about 35, 40 minutes

That would be a few weeks worth of recovery, at least at the pace I was going at. Hopefully an increase in pace would shorten that considerably. Nonetheless, I could say I wasn't looking forward to the journey back. I sighed as I sat down, freshly showered, with juice and rice in hand. I looked at my phone while I dug into my rice. It had pinged while I was out and I hadn't gotten around to checking since I had been focusing on the task at hand.

Hirano's out

2010/2/13 8:13

He says his parents are taking him with them somewhere,

says they're doing this to get his mind off of not

getting anything tomorrow. Apparently they've done this

since he was in 8th grade, he had thought they might not

since he seemed happier this year. Either way, this

means we're gonna have to find somewhere else to do our

thing. My place should be fine, my sister's gonna be

spending time with her boyfriend, though it might by a

little cramped, that alright with you?

I just sent 'sure' and continued eating before I heard a reply come in a few minutes later.

Cool

2010/2/13 10:00

Meet up around 4 if you can, later.

I guess it made sense that Kohta's parents would do something for him. From what we'd heard, despite not being around a lot due to their professions, they still cared for him and tried to have as much fun with him as possible. I'd never really taken the time to consider what he or any of the characters did during this time in universe. Takashi and Rei were a no brainer, Kohta would be off with his parents, Sachiko was home schooled so I doubted she or Zeke would be doing anything noteworthy, and I wasn't really sure what Alice or Shizuka would do. I wasn't knowledgeable enough to know if adults and elementary students did that thing and I was pretty sure Shizuka was single. Takagi and Saeko would probably spend their day as any other.

Maybe I could ask when everyone had time to breathe after we got to Shizuka's.

I got up and went to the sink to rinse off my plate and spoon before placing them in. Although I'd been doing alright in the week since I got back the Kouno's still insisted on giving me shorter hours until I got better, a nice gesture that I would've accepted without hesitation if not for the fact that I wanted to be able to afford all the stuff I wanted. Nonetheless, I couldn't argue against it yet so I'd just thank them for their kindness and head over to Hisashi's on time tomorrow.

I raised my cup in celebration, despite no one being here to toast with me. "To those without dates, may all the normalfags rot."

As soon as that sentence left my lips I curdled in disgust and put my cup down. "God, I'm glad no one heard me say that."

o0o

I looked at Morita's sprawled out form. He hadn't even made it past the entrance.

"Why my place? And why couldn't you wait till getting inside to collapse?"

"I had nowhere else to go, my roommate had a girl over." His voice came out muffled due to his face being down on the floor.

"What happened to Hisashi?" Just as I said that his head rose up, some kind of envious glare on it.

"That traitor? He got invited out," He practically spat the words out, slumping back over as he finished. I just shook my head and walked up to him.

"Why are you surprised? He looks good, acts cool and sounds cool." I started to drag him into the apartment so I could close the door.

"I know, I know but he didn't have anyone for Christmas but Valentine's? My most vulnerable day of the year he suddenly gets someone?" A long drawn out sigh came from Morita, one that stopped as he shot up out of my grip and started to get mad. "Even Imamura got someone! Imamura! That guy! He- he's into older woman and yet he still got a girl." When he finished, what looked to be a rising storm of envy and anger suddenly fell apart and Morita plopped himself down onto a seat, heaving out another long sigh.

"Oh," he started dully, digging into his pocket. "Some clerk at a store on my way here gave me this, no doubt she picked up on my loner vibes. Take it, I thought getting any chocolate would feel good but looking at this pity chocolate would just make me feel bad." He tossed the candy to me and I caught it, it was tiny, about the size of a flash drive.

Suddenly I got a sense of deja vu. I looked at him; blonde hair, super bro-y, alone on Valentine's and handing me chocolate, oh, I got it now. "Is this a confession?" I asked, keeping my face and delivery flat.

Immediately Ryu- Morita looked scandalized and shot out of his seat, "What the hell?! No way man, didn't you hear what I just said?!"

As I started cracking up Morita seemed to realize he'd been had and just shook his head, "Not cool dude, here I am just trying to keep someone in the same spot as me from feeling like shit and you pull that? Give my chocolate and sense of companionship back!" He sat down and changed topics. "Anyways, what do you think dude?"

I thought for a second, digging around to make sure there wasn't any feelings that I wasn't aware of, "I only know like, four girls at the moment dude, and I don't think any of them are the type to give out chocolate. Well, at least not to me." His eyes widened and he picked himself up again, clearly surprised.

"Yo-you know people besides us? And girls at that?"

I should probably feel offended by that, but I guess it didn't really matter. I just nodded.

He narrowed his eyes at me, "what are their names?"

I stopped to think; if he recognized any of them, and I was pretty sure he would get at least Saeko, then I was rather sure he would make a bigger deal out of it than I wanted given how he reacted to just this. "Didn't say I knew them well,"

"How well is 'not well?'" He kept his eyes narrowed as he asked.

"I see them around every once in a while," When I finished saying that he put his hand on my shoulder. His face looked pitying, but in a kind of understanding way.

"I know the feel dude," He just nodded and wiped his face of any potential tears. I was pretty sure we were thinking of those words in different ways, but that was alright.

After a brief period of silence Morita smirked and pulled out a notebook with a small illustration of himself on the cover. "To soothe our lonely hearts and for your enlightenment, I present: Master Morita's Top-Secret List of Fujimi Academy's Triple-A Grade Hot Girls!"

"I don't even go to your school," I was just gonna ignore that atrocious name.

"Doesn't matter! I'm sure that as a hot-blooded male you'll realize just how little that matters once I'm through showing you these!" He patted the notebook with an incredible amount of pride.

Seeing as I already knew what was on the list I just tuned him out and started thinking about what Hisashi was doing right now, I hope he's enjoying his date. If he comes over right now Morita would probably start by giving him the foulest look. Heh. He might welcome Kohta though since he hadn't really done anything wrong in his eyes.

I wonder if Morita was done yet.

"-for masochists!"

Beg pardon?

"Can't say I'd hand her over to you though since I've got my eye on her," I looked at the photo as he was saying that. A photo of Takagi in her gym gear greeted me.

"You do you man, can't really say I'm a fan of being verbally lashed like that," Mortia shook his head and snorted at me, like he hadn't expected me to get it anyways.

This was how things continued to go for the next few hours, just talking; banter, jokes, you know, the usual super bro-y stuff.

Morita looked outside, and turned back to me after seeing how dark it was.

"Don't mean to bug you too much man but uh, would you mind letting me stay? Don't wanna interrupt my friend...doing anything." It wasn't hard to get what he meant, I just nodded.

"Cool," he just awkwardly looked around for a bit. "So, uh, where am I gonna sleep?" He scratched the back of his head, seeming to realize that not really planning for this left him without any idea of how things were gonna go.

"As long as it's not my room, everything else is ok," There wasn't really much to think about, it was just me here with an extra room and some furniture, so he wouldn't really be stepping on anyone's toes by sleeping anywhere, even if he just got up in the middle of the night and decided to use another room.

Instead of saying anything at first, a grin slowly crept up on his face, one that most certainly didn't speak to any pure thoughts. "Oh? And what's wrong with going in your room? Is that where the goods are?" It took a second for me to get what he meant by that, silence filling the room as it hit me.

Once again, I'd forgotten where I was and, more importantly, the setup of an oft used gag that seemed to persist even in the year of our lord 2018, well, I guess it was 2010 here but the point was that the joke was definitely not appreciated. The fabled, 'Porn Mag stash gag.'

I could feel my face loosen as I stared at Morita. With the manga being set when it was, there wasn't much room for gags like these since everyone had been moved away from where they were comfortable, including home. Right now though there was plenty of time for buildup of gags and humorous anecdotes which would be fondly reflected on when something came up to remind anyone of simpler times. I could easily say I'd prefer being subject to dumb little jokes like this rather than having to worry about surviving being outnumbered at least 10,000 to 1.

Didn't mean I had to like them though.

"Want me to throw you out?" When I said that he immediately raised his hands to placate me.

"Hey, I didn't mean anything, it was an innocent-" I raised both brows a bit at that "uh, honest, question," he corrected, laughing nervously. When I didn't move to make good on my word he relaxed a bit, "so, are they a little out there or something?"

I sighed, "I don't have anything dude, and even if I did, I am 100% a vanilla/happy man," I said that with as much honesty as I could muster, to make sure he didn't think I was just being defensive.

Again, Morita pushed his hands out to placate me. Apparently, I'd put more force into that statement then I'd meant to. Better than not enough I suppose.

"That's fair dude, just asking," As he let it drop I suddenly realized that the past me could've indeed had some as that always seemed to be the case, no matter how purely the character was portrayed. I really hoped that wasn't the case.

I would wait until he went to the restroom or something to make sure.

"You could take a bath if you want," Morita palmed his face upon realizing something else.

"I didn't bring any extra clothes, not even my uniform," He looked like he was seriously regretting coming here without a plan now.

"I've got new underwear, you can just wear that while your clothes wash or something, you could even borrow some of my clothes if you want." Morita stared for a second before his expression changed to what I could only describe as 'laying it on thick.'

"Vega! Are you some kind of saint dude?" I quickly stepped back as he came in for contact, whether a hug or clasp, I didn't know, I just wanted no part of it.

In my attempt to get away, I forgot to look behind me and suddenly felt panic and lots of air as I tripped on something. My arms flailed around and one even managed to catch on something to stop my fall, which wasn't to say that it stopped my fall. I ended up hitting my head on the door to the balcony and my body, lopsided as it was, thumped onto to the floor half a second afterwards.

...

"Just get in the bath,"

"Ok,"

When he left, I lay where I was for a second, making sure there wasn't any extreme pain. Thanks to how thick my head was I avoided quite a bit of pain and the other half of my body landing first got rid of some of the force that I'm sure would've otherwise sucked quite a bit. All in all, I guess there wasn't really much damage.

I got up when I was sure that Morita would've at least started to get in and headed over to my room. Due to my attempts at cleaning or making sure the place was relatively orderly before I didn't have many places to check.

In the end I came up clean. Nice.

Just had to make sure Morita didn't find out, or else he'd probably suspect I just hid it really well.

o0o

[3rd]

Saeko's father had just left on another trip that would last until early March, though he would only be back for three or four days until going to a self-defense conference for a few months. Regardless, this meant that she could get back to her runs.

Yesterday had been as it always was this time of year, if she tried to talk to a boy, their eyes were wide and filled with hope. What for, she knew, but nonetheless she would not give them what they desired, although she always kind of felt bad when she saw the disappointment in their eyes upon realizing she was there for the teachers or some other academically related thing. The only exceptions were the boys in the Kendo club and they knew by now that their chocolates were obligations.

Even if she wanted to give one her all, she would not have felt comfortable or worthy of giving them out.

Saeko sighed, despite now being an opportune time for exploring such thoughts, she did not feel up to it. She never did really.

To do so would be to dwell on her more savage desires.

As she continued running she noticed that she was drawing closer to his house.

With how long she had stopped running and how quickly he progressed, she wouldn't be surprised if he could go even further than she could now.

Saeko was very much looking forward to it.

Upon approaching the area they'd met up in for a while, she saw him.

Something was off though, he was slower, breathing harder. Thankfully not to an alarming degree but still, he should have gotten better, not worse. She sped up a bit to catch up to him.

"Vega-san?" He turned around when he heard his name being called. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling decent, why?" His head tilted to the side as he continued running.

"You seem slower than before, and more taxed."

"Ah, that," Thomas pursed his lips. "I overtaxed myself, ended up in the hospital. Muscle loss and the like lead to me losing headway." As he finished, Saeko made to get closer, possibly to check whether he was really alright, but Thomas raised a hand. "I'm really fine now, got an expert's approval and everything, I'm even back to working." Saeko thought for a second, trying to see if he was being truthful or not. "I've only recently recovered, even if I didn't learn my lesson, which I have, then I wouldn't be up and about."

Saeko thought for a bit longer, before deciding something. "We shall run together," he raised both brows and she made to explain, "if you are telling the truth then you should be able to go on for at least a while, if not, I will make sure you get home safely." He shrugged his shoulders and they fell silent as the run continued.

Time passed and Saeko found that he hadn't collapsed immediately, but he was very much behind. Thomas had managed to stay within a couple of meters last time, now he would've fallen at least a dozen behind were it not for her slowing down. When she looked at him she could tell he knew as well, though his face showed no signs of frustration, disappointment or anything different than the last time she had seen him, which wasn't really a perfect comparison mind you as she had only seen his face once. As she was thinking this he drew to a stop, she checked her watch as she did the same, they had only been going at it for around 40 minutes.

Thomas raised a bottle of water to his lips and drank deeply for a few seconds before looking at her. "I'm sorry for holding you back, you can go ahead if you want, I'm just gonna head home."

"Please hold on a moment," Saeko called out, Thomas stopping mid-turn. She swiftly walked over to him and handed him a small box.

"What's this?" Saeko though he was joking until she saw him looking at her with genuine curiosity.

"It's chocolate," she replied, hoping that he would get the rest without her explaining. Him nodding his head in sudden understanding told her that he had.

"Thanks," he said simply, dipping his head in gratitude before once again turning to leave. Saeko had not expected him to make a big deal out of it but had been ready to explain the nature of them, she was glad to see that it was not necessary.

Saeko resumed running once he was out of sight, a smile on her face. She was pleased she had not misjudged his character, at least when it came to matters like these. Even with her disappointment at his dilemma, he'd improved more than that in the two months she had had the pleasure of his company, he would be back up to snuff in no time.

Then, she could once again relish in a worthy challenge.

o0o

[1st]

When I got home I wasn't very happy with the fact that I still hadn't gotten past 40 minutes. I was even less so with how sore I felt, I'd even taken the same route back home instead of taking the shortcut. That might've explained some of it actually but still, not a very good experience. Shaking my head as I pulled off my hoodie, I pulled out the chocolates before placing it on the table, looking the box over.

Not quite cheap but not luxury or special in any way, obligation chocolate then. Milk chocolate, that was good. I started to unwrap the chocolate so I could eat it before I remembered something.

Morita was still here.

After he'd spent the night over yesterday we'd decided it wouldn't hurt for him to stay over another one, he had agreed since he didn't want to return to what he deemed an affront to his person. I'd even made him some dinner today since I learned he mostly stuck to simple stuff or convenience store food.

I started to wrap the chocolate back up as quietly as possible. I'd wanted to enjoy it before my shower and what I'd made for dinner, but I suppose I'd have to hide it until sometime tomorrow.

Just had to hope he didn't find out.

Suddenly a thud come from the doorway. I slowly turned to where the sound came from and saw Morita gawking at what I had in my hands, his phone on the floor.

"TRAITOOOOOOOORRRRRRRR!"

Guess it was too much to hope for that to work a second time, huh?

o0oo0oo0o

A little after deciding on Morita coming over by himself on Valentine's, I realized the similarity between this and 'Clearly the Greatest Valentine's Day Option' and decided to use that as a reference. It really helped since I hadn't thought of much other than 'he comes over' and it ended up being my favorite scene to write.


	7. Chapter 7: Spring I

VII

[1st]

It had finally happened.

The breakup.

2 days from White Day, Rei broke up with Takashi.

Less than a week after Valentine's, Takashi started hanging out with us more, though he was usually out of it, and more than that, Hisashi was around less.

The break up had been something that everyone had seen coming, even Takashi. Still, he couldn't work up the chutzpah to do anything and so things went exactly as they did in canon.

I felt bad, but I'd settled on this path and I'd rather spend my time thinking about our survival later than how to improve things now. I definitely wasn't confident enough to try and do both.

The only slight exception to that was a plan to take out Shido and even that was in the sense that it would help more later than the few days before Z-day. My plan wasn't even mine really, it was taken from another author.

When I was in the last two weeks of prep I would find Shido after school and see what he did regularly, after I pinned it I would wait until the last few days and then I'd shoot him, with my bow, of course, before dumping his body somewhere. I'd decide on where specifically when I found out his usual routine.

My movement had always been quiet, I had surprised family members and strangers alike in moments of peace so the sneaking part was easy enough by itself, what I was worried about was whether I would stay quiet when under such pressure and whether I could follow through with close quarters murder.

So I'd decided ranged was the best option.

I'd gotten good enough with aiming that I could even hit a moving target with relative accuracy and my arrows were sharp enough to pierce through easily.

My breath was shaky now, just thinking about this was building nerves. Six months ago the thought of murdering someone hadn't been foreign to me, I doubt it was to most people. The thing that was different was how seriously I was thinking about it now.

By this time next month, Shido would be dead.

I rubbed my eyes.

I should do myself a favor and stop thinking about this when it's not as important.

Almost made me wish I was the drinking sort.

Almost.

o0o

Despite the heavy thoughts that were starting to follow me, I was still—at the moment—living a rather cheerful life. White Day was tomorrow and I had decided to get Saeko chocolate in return for her gift last month. I'd looked up if that was the proper response and couldn't find any specifications as to whether you were only supposed to if they were romantic, while asking anyone in the group wasn't really advised. Regarding Takashi and Hisashi, it was still too soon, Kohta wouldn't know and neither would Morita, who I'm sure would say yes either way, unless he got mad at me again, especially since he knew who they would be for. So in the end I had decided to go with it just in case, if not I could just tell her I didn't really know and we would be good.

Which led to now, with me in line after work, candy in hand, behind some other nervous but happy looking guys who I saw were kind of in the same boat as me. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly depending on how you look at it I guess, the chocolates made by the Kouno's were a lot cheaper than the usual brands. Guess I'd have to thank them for that later.

Chocolates in hand, I started to leave. I'd have to give them to her when we were out for a run either tomorrow or sometime after that. I didn't really know a lot about her schedule and I'd pretty much caught up to pre-collapse levels last week so I was eager to run with her again. While I'd been hoping to do so a bit earlier this was basically as much as I had been expecting.

After doing the math on my bills and such I'd started trying to think around the extraneous stuff, you know, a really cost versus practicality approach, and in the end, it was better to just beef up my diet for better results. That wasn't to say I'd cut off a lot, thankfully I hadn't added as much fluff as I'd feared when I first sat down to do this. Small things, I guess.

As I made my way towards home I bumped into someone and had to excuse myself. I patted my pockets to make sure nothing was taken, I had never been pickpocketed but thought it was better to make sure. Then I started to wonder why they would bump into me. Usually the street wasn't very crowded so collisions had never really happened. I looked around and saw something. 5 guys were crowded around a spot, shoving someone around and jeering.

I immediately crossed the street and made my way towards them. The first time this had happened the only reason I stepped in was because of Hisashi pulling me in as I hadn't even known Kohta was the one being wailed on. I'd never gotten into a fight before that and I didn't really know if I was the heroic type, the kind of person that would step in without regards to the odds of winning. Even now I didn't really regret not immediately stepping in, especially seeing as I'd still come out of the fight with a swollen if not busted lip, bruised body and other minor injuries, even if most of said injuries were mostly faded come the next morning. I would have without a doubt been laid out if it hadn't been for Hisashi.

Now though, it was much different. I was stronger, faster and overall stood a better chance of not getting bodied. So I made my way over quietly. Hopefully I could just knock one or two of them out before they actually responded.

As I got in range I raised my hand and just punched the closest person to me. He went down without any noise.

4 to go.

Immediately the others turned as the guy I'd just knocked out fell onto the person they were ganging up on.

The first to recover just rushed me, not really considering the fact that I'd knocked his buddy out of commission with a single hit.

He threw a sloppy punch towards my face, one that I'm pretty I could've dodged even if I was dizzy or sick. I clotheslined him and he went down just as quickly, sure hope I wasn't doing any serious damage to these guys, considering how quickly and easily they were dropping.

It was at that moment I realized that the other three had started moving to surround me already, two of them behind me with the other coming directly for me.

I hope this wasn't a mistake.

The first guy had a loose boxer's stance. That was worrying, if he was any better than a rank amateur then this could be a big problem. He closed the gap and threw a punch towards my stomach and I stepped into it, better the hit I could see coming then the two from behind me. I tensed my stomach up to take the hit and still felt it, not really sure if that was a good idea. Still, he took long enough pulling his punch for me to just grip his arm and quickly throw him behind me, hoping to hit one of the others. His stance was loose enough for me to actually do it but not enough for him to go flying as I'd wanted, though he still managed to bump into one of the guys. The other was already close and in the middle of punching me, the hit glancing my side. I flinched at the sudden pain and stumbled, letting him get another hit in to my stomach.

As he reared back for a third hit I shot forward and grabbed his collar, smashing my head into his face without any regard to where the hit landed. Being taller than him, the top of my head bludgeoned his, knocking him onto the ground while he clutched his head. The other two had started recovering by now up until I ran forward and kicked one in the stomach, at which point he dropped like a sack of rocks. The one I'd thrown was the only person left and I just started wailing on him, hoping he'd be knocked out quickly.

When I stopped I caught my breath, looking around and seeing the only one still conscious was the guy I'd head butted and he was just wordlessly suffering on the floor. Last time I'd hit someone with my head it almost bruised them, and that was an accidental tap, I couldn't imagine he would get off with almost.

I went to where the fight had started and pulled the first guy off the victim.

Only to see a cowering Kohta. Again.

When he kept his eyes tightly shut I spoke up. "We've got to stop meeting like this," when he heard my voice he cracked an eye open and looked over. That might've been in poor taste.

"Vega-san!" I could clearly hear the relief in his voice as he slowly made to get up.

After the joke fell flat I decided to cut to the chase. "Does this happen often? I thought it stopped." As I spoke his expression fell and he looked away.

"Ah, no," He slowly muttered, body shifting uncomfortably. "It doesn't happen as often since I've started hanging around Morita-san and Igou-san, but it certainly hasn't stopped."

I looked Kohta up and down. It made sense I guess, he was short, fat and an otaku, even if it was a gun nut, that much hadn't changed. The only thing that had was him having any friends to speak of.

I pushed my hands deeper into my hoodie as I contemplated what to do, when I suddenly realized it was obvious.

"Work out," I suddenly said, causing Kohta to flinch in surprise. It had worked for Tom, uh, Brody, why couldn't it work for me? I was already using his plan for Shido and I'd even told Morita, so why didn't I think to do the same for Kohta? Though admittedly I wouldn't have a squadron of buff nerds afterwards one less chunky nerd was enough for me. "Your parents are rich right? Just ask them for some workout stuff and I'm sure they'd support you. You get stronger, stop getting picked on by some randos with too much time on their hands and you could even act out some kind of military fighter thing, its a win-win-win."

As I went on I saw Kohta's face gradually brighten up before he seemed to come back down, "What if it's too hard? Or if I don't get any better?" He started to draw in on himself as he said that.

"Would you rather be a stress ball for a bunch of jackasses?" I asked, I'd honestly been worried about the same thing when I first started as I'd never really put in the effort before but I was rather sure that wouldn't be the case for any of the main cast.

He grimaced and I was rather sure I had my answer. I motioned for him to walk with me and we began to head home, talking about what kind of things he was least looking forward to or what Morita's reaction would be to a ripped Kohta, even if I knew that he wouldn't get that far before things went south.

Even after trying to plan through more things I still missed things that were obvious in hindsight, I wasn't really surprised but still.

I sighed.

Just more for me to think upon I guess.

o0o

[3rd]

White Day, a day that Saeko disliked almost as much as Valentine's. Regardless of those that accepted her chocolate for what it was, there were still those that hoped to make more of it when returning the favor. She had been raised to honor tradition even if only by obligation and to accept things gracefully, without distaste or scorn (unless it was an offense to her person, which something rarely was bad enough to count as). She would not embarrass herself or her father by snapping at someone for returning her gift.

Still, sometimes it drained her energy. Just another reason to enjoy tonight's run she supposed.

Saeko had been a bit busier with studying last week since finals were coming in a few weeks so she'd missed Thomas but she had no doubt that he would back soon.

There he was.

She felt her blood pumping more in anticipation. Would she finally get the match she had wanted?

She saw him turn his head slightly, he heard her. Then he sped up just a tiny bit.

Her mouth turned up a bit, this was it.

Rather than the route, she zeroed in on Thomas running, starting to pick up more details on him as her focus shifted.

The adjustments in foot placement as he turned, the billow of his pants, his hair bouncing as he ran, his clothes shifting as his body rapidly twisted to push him forward; Saeko was paying close attention to everything as they ran, choosing single minded focus over her usual freely moving train of thought in order to push herself.

Buildings bled into each other as they continually screamed past corners, hurtled through streets and bolted across sections.

As they darted past better lighting for a brief moment she saw his skin flushed and glistening, before feeling just how slick and hot her own skin was. How long had they been running for them to be this tired? 40, 50 minutes? Maybe even 60? The slight smirk that had fallen as the run continued suddenly came back stronger as a full blown grin.

She wasn't holding back and he still managed to keep pace with her. Even after all this time.

Saeko felt herself burning out and as she looked at Thomas she knew he was as well. Once she thought he was ready to collapse she would fly past him, she would pull up whatever reserves she had and do it.

Even after all his hard work she would still win.

He slowed down more and she saw her time come. Saeko bolted past Thomas, almost falling over as she skid to a stop.

Her lungs were heaving, she was red, she felt her muscles keening at how much she had overworked them and she suspected she might start heaving too.

Everything hurt.

But she had still won.

Then Thomas went tumbling past her. Stopping a few meters in front of her, limbs messily splayed out.

After she remembered to continue breathing she started to slowly shamble towards him, wanting to check on him.

"I win," she barely picked up the rasp that came from his throat. When Saeko finally got close enough to see his face again she saw that he was staring at her, as if to let her know that he had most certainly just said that.

"...pft," Saeko raised her hand to cover her mouth but failed as her laughter bubbled through. He looked ridiculous, some kind of victorious exhaustion on his face as he left his arms and legs randomly thrown out.

For a few seconds the only sound was Saeko's laughter before she cut off to continue catching her breath and silence filled the area.

Eventually Thomas got up and weakly dusted himself off. He pulled a water bottle out of a pocket and fumbled with the cap until it came off. "Gah," he exclaimed, clicking his tongue when he looked down at the spilled water on himself.

She lightly laughed again and he turned the bottle to her, shaking it as if to offer some to her. "No thank you, I have my own," Saeko reached into the bag where she kept her bokken, pulling out a sports bottle and drinking deeply. Thomas shrugged before he drained some more of his own bottle. "Again, I would like to congratulate you on a job well done," His attention was brought back to Saeko as she addressed him. "Even after falling sick and getting weaker you still caught up to me in such a short time frame." Saeko bowed to Thomas, something which he waved off.

"I'm not carrying a bokken, so I haven't really beaten you yet." He dismissed her attempts to refute his claim "I'm not saying I'm not proud, just that I haven't really beaten you yet." He nodded gratefully towards her "thanks for the congratulations though, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good, once you get past the screaming agony." Saeko nodded in agreement before Thomas seemed to remember something.

"Ah," He reached into his other pocket, face twisting a bit before settling once he pulled out a container. "Cool, it's-" his face twisted again upon spotting something, "-mostly unharmed," He held out the container to Saeko.

Saeko stared at him, then looked at the container, then back to him as she discerned what he was holding. "Thank you," She inclined her head before taking it.

"No problem," He said, seeming to just fill some time with more words.

When nothing was said he nodded as though satisfied with the silence. "I'm just gonna rest a bit more before going home, you can go ahead if you want, I guess." He plopped down onto the ground as he said this, closing his eyes.

"Actually, I was hoping to practice, um, parkour with you," As Saeko said this he cracked an eye open, sitting up to look at her.

"Since when?" He asked simply.

"Well, I had been curious since you mentioned it but only recently decided to actually get into it as I had many things to work on at the time." She explained as she sat beside Thomas, waiting for him to get up so they could go forward with their practice.

"Alrighty then," he left it at that and they simply sat a bit longer before rising up to do what they intended.

"Let's go," He said, picking up speed to start them off. "I'll try to make sure you don't crack open your head, I guess."

Saeko smirked.

o0o

[1st]

Overall things had gone better than when I'd gotten my chocolates, even with the searing pain. For one, Morita wasn't here. While he had been over multiple times I'd made sure to keep him away today. After he'd stopped screaming about my treachery he had done everything in his power to see who I got them from and proceeded to flip out all over again when he saw they were from THE Saeko Busujima. It was at that point that I told him she was one of the girls I hadn't expected to get anything from but that we were just Rivals. Morita being Morita started talking about how that was 'a classic setup' and wondering how I 'missed the flags' to which I told him life doesn't (usually, as far as I could tell) work that way.

When I got him to settle down again I convinced him that working out would help his luck with girls, especially if you added in his band. While he had still been kinda (read, extremely) sour he thankfully just dropped the conversation.

Needless to say I hadn't wanted a repeat of that, especially since he usually bugged me when he came over and I went out for a run.

Thankfully, whatever god was out there was smiling down on me today and he ended up going over to Takashi's to hang out with him and Hisashi. Takashi had even let him stay over.

Kohta meanwhile was stuck in the same spot with his parents out doing whatever, although he'd sent me messages saying he'd already managed to convince them to get him workout gear, so good on him.

With things going so well for me at the moment, that was obviously when I got a call from the from Satoru with his wife sobbing in the background.

o0o

I'd gotten closer to the Kouno's as a whole after my recovery thanks to most of the kids (with the exception of Akane, who I'd only met once) living within a 5 minute bus ride of their parents. But I had gotten especially close to the elders since they lived closest to me, their free time was more in line with mine and their personalities were kind of similar to my parents.

Nonetheless, I had been scared when I heard Satoru, whose voice was normally lighthearted and soft, sounding so somber and heavy. The feeling had gotten worse when I heard Ayame bawling her eyes out nearby.

"Tom-chan," Satoru had started, while Ayame hadn't stopped even with the mention of my name, something I'd gotten used to.

"Yes sir?" I'd answered, already nervous thinking about what could've possibly happened.

"I ask that you come over if you have the time," His words were so strangely formal that I nodded before registering that he couldn't see me.

"I'll be right over." After that I'd hung up and put my shoes on. Even if I'd only finished my shower an hour ago and I was rather tired, the sadness in his voice convinced me to push past my exhaustion and get ready.

I'd barely even stepped inside before Satoru had rushed me further in and I saw that everyone, kids included, had swollen, red eyes and leaky faces.

Despite not knowing what was going on, I was slightly used to crying people needing comfort so I did what I usually did in situations like this.

I found the person feeling the worst and went to hug them.

I wasn't all that good at comforting people, one time I'd even said 'there, there,' as a joke because it was all I could really think of doing. The extent of my ability was hugging someone and letting them squeeze me until they felt a little better and maybe stopping their trembling. So as I approached Ayame, whose face seemed to be falling in on itself with how tightly she was scrunching it up as she sat in a ring of tissues, I did just that. I walked right into her and just wrapped my arms around her. Being substantially taller and just all around bigger than her it was kinda like a big pillow comforting her. She seemed to instinctively wrap her arms back around me and squeezed as hard as she could, arms violently shuddering. Satoru came and started to give her a half hug as well.

Everyone else comforted each other, slowly coming over to the three of us for a big awkward circle-hug thingy.

A few minutes had passed before most of them pulled back to reveal a calmer Ayame, now just sniffling a bit.

I waited for someone to speak up first, hoping they'd explain but not prying.

"Tom-chan, would you mind helping me get some drinks?" Satoru turned to me, softly rubbing his wife's shoulder as he asked. I just nodded and made to follow him.

Once we got into the kitchen we started getting the drinks ready. Satoru was quiet as he seemed to gather his thoughts.

"We just got news that Ayame's childhood friend died." He softly started, pausing for a second. "They were like sisters, living next door from each other and living interchangeably at each others' houses." His words faded off as he got a bit emotional, then he continued.

"I didn't really meet her until I was a third year in senior high but it's been quite a while since then so you could imagine we all had time to get close." There was no humor in his tone or the hoarse chuckle he let out. He raised a shaking hand from the tea he was making, "Tom-chan, could you help me with this?" I just walked over and took over for him. He smiled appreciatively. "She'd never been the healthiest but we didn't think that she would-" He cut himself off, apparently deciding to not finish that sentence. "Well, I just wanted you to know what all the fuss was about." I nodded and picked up the tray of drinks.

I'd done this recently, in much lighter circumstances. It was rather disconcerting.

As we returned to the living room everyone looked to be in slightly higher spirits, which was always a good thing. When I looked around the room I felt my stomach lurch.

It felt strange to be so deeply involved in something so personal again.

o0o

By the time I got home again it was approaching 6 am, I'd been awake for over 18 hours, but I wouldn't really feel it until I hit my bed, so I was gonna put that off for a bit longer.

As was custom, my apartment felt so much emptier when I got back from any kind of get together. This time there was at least a slightly positive spin to it. Without family here I couldn't lose any of them.

At least, I wouldn't be aware of if I did.

One of the things that had always bothered me when watching shows was seeing characters, especially if they were supposed to be smart, taking a long time to realize something I considered obvious. This mattered to me less and less as I found stuff around every corner that should've been obvious hit me out of nowhere.

A really good example was death.

I'd somehow forgotten about people dying to things that weren't zombies being a thing.

Though I'd played it off well (hopefully), Ayane's death had come as a shock to me, not because I knew her but because it had happened at all. That had reminded me of the elderly couple from the mall in the latter half of the manga. While they had ended up killing themselves instead of being turned that didn't change the fact that the old woman would have died rather soon anyways. Not only that but there would be many, many more dying from lack of treatment for whatever illnesses they had, including whatever future generations came after this.

I sighed. I should just play something on the TV and go to bed, hopefully it would keep me from having any nightmares.

After walking over and putting something on repeat I walked over to the couch and flopped onto it.

Lights out.

o0oo0oo0o

Just a heads up for those wondering, next chapter should be **The Beginning of The End** and all that unless it seems like the lead in is too long. So for those that have been looking forward to that, yay! For those that haven't, me too honestly.


	8. Chapter 8: Spring II

VIII

[1st]

Unless I was off, there was less than a week to go before Z-day.

I had decided that today was the day that I would kill Shido.

Despite my initial plans it actually didn't take long to get his normal day to day schedule down, so I'd decided to just go for it and take him down.

That being said, it didn't make me any less nervous to be doing this. The only thing keeping me from fainting from stress or something was constantly making jokes and distracting myself, although I made sure not to think too long so that I could make sure no one had spotted me or that he wasn't approaching.

"Should've taken up harmonica or something," I muttered to myself, checking all my stuff over for the 12th time, I hadn't really brought much with me so it was a quick task.

I moved my lower jaw around a bit.

Glancing out from my cover, I checked for Shido even though I knew he wouldn't be here yet, that nagging what if? feeling you got whenever you were about to do anything important kicking in.

I'd forgotten what it was like for time to seemingly slow down because you wanted it to pass quickly. Even working provided more entertainment than this, at least then I could just daydream or something for hours on end since not much ever happened.

I shifted to look from my cover.

 _Oh? So you're the one that's been following me. I can't imagine what for but I suppose that doesn't really matter. Can't really have someone digging around in my life, now can we?_

I swallowed and resisted the urge to hit my head in an attempt to get that thought out quickly.

I moved to check if Shido was here.

 _If you're looking for me you should really get better at tailing people, although I guess it's a bit too late for that._

I grit my teeth and held my breath, if things were this bad I couldn't imagine-

He's here.

My body froze.

I carefully waited, counting the seconds until he walked past where he could see me before checking for any people that had spotted me. None. Good.

I took another breath and swallowed again. Moment of truth, worst case scenario I end up dead once Shido sicks his goons or whatever on me.

That didn't help at all.

I slowly slid out of cover, making sure to keep out of the light since as bad as the lighting was I could see his outline well enough.

I pulled back on the bowstring. I'd been practicing almost obsessively for the last week, using a small catapult to launch things for me to hit. I could most likely hit him even if he started to run.

I aimed at Shido and held my breath, pulling back further. My body wouldn't stop shaking.

I put it down silently and choked back a frustrated growl.

If it was this bad now, how long would it take for some zombie to get lucky and chomp me while I'm quivering in fear?

Would I just lay down and accept my death? Would I silently watch in horror as I was torn apart?

No.

I wouldn't.

I'd told myself a thousand times, nothing would change that.

I slowly breathed in and out and pulled back at the same time, repeating the process as I took aim.

One last look around for anyone and making sure it was in fact Shido. Negative and positive.

Perfect.

I let loose.

Shido went down.

I smiled.

Then I waited for a reaction just in case there was someone there I wasn't aware of.

Nothing.

I lept from the building I was on and rolled, quickly making for Shido's body, knife at my side in case he was sandbagging. Not very likely but I wasn't taking chances.

When I drew near I slowed down, holding the knife closer in case he jumped at me. When nothing happened I bent closer and stabbed him twice, the ease with which the blade slid through was...unsettling.

I put some gloves on and rolled the body over.

It was him. Thank God.

When I had started following him I'd found two things: One being a place to hide the body and another being just how much of a sleazebag he was, which had further cemented my wish to get rid of him so that he couldn't kill more people through corruption, his crazy sex cult or actual murder. At some point I thought of leaving his body out for people to get worked up over so they could have their guard up for the zombies but decided against it since being cautious wouldn't mean they'd go down any smoother and I didn't want everyone's last few days of normalcy to be tainted with worry over a killer on the loose.

I dumped his body in a garbage bin and moved the trash around to cover him completely, not only did the thing smell bad enough to dissuade people from looking in the first place but he was where he belonged.

And thus the world was a better place.

I brought the arrow with me back to my stuff and put it in the quiver after cleaning it off.

Around 6 days left and Shido was already gone.

Now I could use my remaining time to get stuff together. I'd already requested more time off, promising to come back with more energy than ever before when it was over, which was true in the sense that if there was indeed work to come back to I'd probably be so pumped to be alive that I could be used as an alternate energy source.

I inhaled deeply, less than a week until everything went South.

And I was gonna try to enjoy every last second of it.

o0o

[3rd]

After White Day Saeko was surprised to see Thomas carrying a case of his own, not the same kind as hers but a case nonetheless.

When she asked what was in it he had simply answered that it was a bow.

Following that, despite no longer being able to keep up with her, something which disappointed her more than last time as she'd actually been looking forward to taking back victory again, and how this seemed to be becoming a pattern. She remained entertained however, by conversing with him about things like his bow and how long he'd been practicing archery.

"Mid-November," He puffed out, case swaying despite his attempts at keeping it from moving.

"Really? It seems to me like you started many things in the last few months," Her answers were usually longer than his, due to her being more experienced with this.

"Yep,"

"Why is that?" She had never heard of someone having so many hobbies.

"More free time, kinda" He seemed to think a bit longer before saying "plus, learning all this stuff is fun."

Saeko moved closer to him and looked for a smile or something of the like.

"You don't seem to be enjoying this," She stated teasingly. "Or rather, I have never heard of someone enjoying nightly activities such as this." When she said that he snorted, to which she raised a brow, though she did not comment on it.

"Well, I can't say wearing myself out is fun, but at least I'm not suffering alone,"

"On the contrary, I am rather enjoying this." When that left her lips she tensed up a bit, feeling as if she might have said too much. She glanced to Thomas to gauge his reaction but saw the same flat expression as usual, albeit a bit lower due to fatigue.

That was good, she did not want to make her more undesirable thoughts known.

There was not much conversation after that. As Saeko thought she might let another, in her mind, crude, joke slip through and Thomas was focusing on running and his own problems.

When he stopped, Saeko did too, though more out of surprise than anything else.

"So, uh," Thomas started, still thinking about how to word what he wanted to say. "I won't be out for like, four or five days and I know I didn't tell you last time but you know, we've actually talked a bit since then so, yeah," He stopped as he waited for a reaction. If she didn't say anything or thought it was unnecessary he would probably be too embarrassed to say anything for the rest of the night.

"Why will you be gone? Is there something going on?" She asked, he hadn't really taken any longer than two days since coming back.

"I've got a deadline and I'm not sure if I'm prepared so I'm just gonna stay home for the next few days and work on that,"

"Ah, then I wish you good luck in your endeavors," Saeko bowed, her earlier perceived mistake forgotten.

He nodded. "Well, I'll be going then, need to get up early tomorrow."

And with that he made his way home.

She was sad to see him go but continued nonetheless. Whatever it was he was working on, she wished him luck in it.

o0o

[1st]

April 9th, 3 or 4 days left.

Luckily Shido's body hadn't been found yet and Hisashi told me he hadn't come in for 2 days, something which most of the school welcomed.

Hard as it was to kill him, I wanted to head out to places on the outskirts of town in order to check for zombies. I figured looking for them now would be the closest I had to a safe environment for this kind of thing.

The first place I checked for them was Zeke's neighborhood. I didn't think I'd find anything there but it was good to check.

It had been a while since I'd come here, only doing so three times to get a rough mental map.

Speaking of Zeke, I hadn't seen him since or Sachiko since my first time here and I felt kind of bad about that too as meeting her once was enough to bring her to mind under the current circumstances.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, I didn't see them the whole time I was there, nor did I find any zombies thankfully, though that also kind of built up suspense as I made for my next destination.

When I found nothing in the next area a part of me thought maybe I wouldn't find anything, a smaller part of me thought that might mean it wouldn't happen at all.

But I moved on regardless, heading to the poorest part of town.

Tokonosu, being a large city, had an area where quality of living took a large turn down from the middle class. I had planned on checking here last from the beginning since I thought it the most likely place to have zombies that nobody would notice. This was due to the fact that there were multiple abandoned buildings that homeless people took shelter in. Keeping track of all the missing persons was likely enough of a struggle, let alone those that most would consider wastes of space or resources. So as I entered the first empty lot, an apartment school that didn't seem to be up to snuff in the first place, I was once again shaking. If I was gonna see any zombies before the expected time, this was the kind of place I would do so.

I was right.

As I stepped in, I noted the walls, lined with old drawings and furniture suited for children. The fade and gunk on the wall ruined what would be an endearing sight. For a second I thought about how much this seemed like a horror movie before I realized why that was and slapped myself. The emptiness of the area made the sound echo through the halls.

Suddenly a shuffling sound came from somewhere behind me.

I whipped around and saw somebody slowly making their way out of the room.

I hoped that it was just some tired or drunk person. That hope died when I saw their face turn towards me.

Pale skin, pulled taught by bulging veins around white, clouded eyes. When he got out of the doorway I saw what turned him. A gaping hole in the side of his face, muscles and at one point bone out for all to see, some of the meat that hadn't been pulled off successfully was laying in his mouth or swaying with his movement.

As my throat tightened and stomach twisted I got ready to head for the zombie, knife in hand, stopping when I saw another one step out.

And another. All of them looked just as pale and hideous as the first.

I'd wanted a safe testing ground for this but stepped into the building and went as far as the second floor. If, when I got out of this I was going to go home and punch myself in the face—another zombie stepped out—twice.

The only thing that made me feel like less of an idiot was that I'd brought my anti-chomp clothes and put them on before stepping inside, that was also the only reason I thought I'd be making it out of here.

I closed in on the first zombie, stabbing it when I got close, more out of discomfort with being so close than sureness of a clean hit.

When it went down I sidestepped it and started to move for the one behind it, yelping when my foot went straight past the floor and into a lower one. As the second zombie walked towards me it found that the spot in front of me was no less fragile, falling right alongside me, to which I just raised my knife up and it fell on top of it. As I pulled myself out the others were already upon me, the leading one reaching to grab me. I just punched it in the face with the cestus on my other hand, the spikes at the end doing their job and punching through its skull before I rushed the one the last one and did the same with the other hand.

At least I knew both weapon choices were both perfectly functional personally now.

I breathed in and out to steady my breath, that hadn't even been close but it still shook me up terribly.

Now I had confirmation that corpses were indeed going to get up and try to eat people. A few days before killing Shido I'd decided to look around the internet and see if I could find any reports of people going around to munch on each other and turned up nothing despite my hours of trying. It might not have been that no one else saw it but that I was the first to survive the encounter.

I pursed my lips. So, did I go through the building trying to clean out the buggers that were hidden or did I go home for now and absorb what had happened before trying again tomorrow?

My thinking was cut off as I was pulled from behind. I tried to twist out of the grip of whoever was grabbing me and slipped back into the hole, the zombie falling on top of me. As we started to struggle I found that even with my strength it was still overpowering me, as its face drew closer. I heard more noise around me and looked past my shoulder to see a handful of them were coming from the direction of the stairs.

This was bad.

I couldn't really risk pulling back to punch it as both arms were preoccupied trying to keep this thing from getting my face, I spared a glance behind myself to see some of the others already a few doors away.

This was really bad.

My mind started racing, attempting to pick the golden route that would lead to my survival.

I just kept looping around, this thing's thrashing was really distracting and the ghouls drawing in weren't too welcome either.

A sudden clarity came to me, along with a plan.

I had a leg that was free.

I raised my leg and pushed against the zombie, its head slumping forward into my chest. I used the opportunity to punch it in the head, which caved from the force alone.

Quickly pushing the body off and yanking myself out of the hole I rushed towards the other zombies and let loose on them, breathing out heavily once they were all down.

All the sounds no doubt attracted whatever zombies were here. I would clear this place out then head home, no reason to draw them outside and start everything early after all.

I went back to the first floor after pulling my knife out of the second zombie and started beating on the wall. Nothing. I did it again, still nothing.

I guess the few that had come up were the only ones on this floor.

The second floor saw similar results.

When I walked up to the third and final floor I saw two already shuffling towards the staircase but pounded on the wall anyways. When none came out I just finished off the ones coming towards me and started heading to the entrance again.

Mission accomplished. Yay. Time to go home and freak out at the fact that I'd confirmed the apocalypse was coming.

Actually, since the place had been cleared out I guess I could do that here.

Yeah, that sounded good.

With that decided I took as deep a breath as possible and screamed.

o0o

April 12th. This was the first day that I assumed the apocalypse would go down on, the second being that nothing had happened, my gut told me it would be tomorrow, no ifs, ands or buts about it. I'd cleaned out more zombies around some parts of town for much of yesterday and the day previous, hoping to cull the amount of death on the first day, not that I expected many people to make it through even with my help. I'd done it to make it easier for me, or us. Yesterday had been worrying, I'd found a few dozen zombies in multiple buildings, I'd even been forced away from an area once I saw the place was already filled with more of them than I was comfortable with trying to take down. I took down 20 or so before heading off however. That place probably contributed quite a bit to the local damage done.

Moving on from the zombies themselves, I'd taken a small loan a little before starting to chase Shido to get the remaining stuff I wanted, which wasn't much considering I could only carry so much with me without putting too much burden on myself or making too much noise, at least for now. I planned on leaving some stuff here for when I could afford to make the trip.

I'd gone on a bunch of forums and warned them of what was going to happen, using pictures from my phone of zombies as evidence. With predictable results. I became the butt end of a bunch of jokes and harassment but shrugged it off, then I made a second account and warned them about crazy people attacking others, that was taken a bit better but still largely laughed off. If they didn't want to believe me then that was their funeral. Heh.

I had expressed an uncomfortable feeling to my friends and the Kouno's, as if something terribly wrong was going to happen soon and I'd managed to sneak one in a few weeks ago with Shizuka and Kazu, her assistant when I had first started tailing Shido. All of them had been nice about it but I don't think any of them believed me either, except for Kohta, who had messaged me the next day asking how bad it felt, I'd told him to expect the worst. A bit discouraging that only one person had really taken me seriously but I doubted outright telling them or showing them would help either, since I'm pretty sure they would freeze up in terror or keep denying it, at which point they wouldn't be of any help to anybody.

So here I was, packing things up, checking and rechecking my stuff, finding the best arrangement in my pack, adjusting the straps for minimal sound later, looking over my weapons, etc. I'd done this yesterday and once I was done I would enjoy the biggest meal I could comfortably fit into my stomach and relax.

This would be the last day I could truly do so.

o0o

The alarm was set.

My stuff was set.

I wasn't.

o0o

[3rd] {No one}

As dawn came upon Tokonosu City, it painted a beautiful picture.

Clear skies, a gentle breeze and the Sakura trees alone showed just how nature could capture the hearts and eyes of so many. The picture of serenity.

Were it not for the smoke and corpses.

Soon the city and the world (those parts that weren't already affected) would know how quickly things could collapse.

And those not wishing for simpler times before would most certainly do so now.

o0o

{Hisashi}

Hisashi had turned his head when the door was slammed open, as had everyone else. "Komuro! Not only are you cutting class but you're also interrupting-" Hisashi stopped paying attention when Takashi had walked up to Rei.

As everyone had started laughing and Takagi got mad, Hisashi had gone up to him. "Takashi. What are you doing with Rei?"

"There was an incident with a killer at the front gate." At those words Hisashi's eyes widened.

"That's horrible." Nothing like this had happened so close before, he grimaced. "Are you serious?"

Takashi nodded, "What would I have to gain by lying about something like this?"

Rei suddenly interrupted with an indignant expression on her face until Takashi slapped her across the face. Hard.

"Just listen to what I have to say," Takashi turned to Hisashi, who nodded. Hisashi excused himself and Rei.

Once they were out Takashi started to run down the hallway, where to Hisashi didn't know.

"You remember how Tom said he had a bad feeling about this week?" Hisashi nodded, while Rei took on a confused face, it quickly changed to anger and disbelief when her ex next spoke.

"He was right, someone ate one of the teachers, then he got up and started killing the others. They're all dead now." Before Rei could protest how stupid that was Hisashi interrupted her.

"Like a zombie?" Takashi grimaced and nodded.

Rei saw the seriousness on Hisashi's face and decided to trust in his judgement, though she still didn't really believe such a thing happened.

Rei went ahead of them and stopped in front of a bunch of tools. "If Takashi's story is true, you'll need these." He took the head off of a broom and gave it to Rei, while Takashi received a bat.

Takashi frowned, "What about you?"

Hisashi reached into his pocket, bringing out the knife his father had given him for Christmas. He had been bringing it with him since

"I'll use this," He paused for a second, staring at the knife. "In any case, let's get out of here. I'm worried about my family."

"We need to call the police! My dad's a detective so he'll come right away!" Takashi handed his phone over for Rei to try calling. She started to look scared when her father didn't answer.

"Repeat. This is a recording. We at the 110 Emergency Line are held up at the moment. If after calling again, we still can't receiver your call, please wait and call again later. Repeat. This is a recording..." The phone continued its message but Rei had stopped listening.

"A lot of people must be calling 110... How can that..." She looked lost, somewhere between confused, terrified and concerned.

The intercom crackled to life, "Attention all students and teachers! At the present time there is a violent struggle occurring on the premises. Students stay with your teachers and follow their instructions! Repeat at the present ti-" whoever was making the announcement was cut off as they suddenly heard the sounds of a scuffle. "What are you doing? Hey get off me! Help! Stop! I'm going to-" The transmission stopped. For a second, no sound was uttered throughout the school.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The group of three heard faint screaming coming from the lower floors, although the fact it made it through at all let them know just how loud it was.

As they heard others start screaming in the classrooms Hisashi seemed to think for a second, whispering something to Takashi when he finished, who looked a bit weirded out by whatever Hisashi had said before nodding anyways. Then they began running, Hisashi dragging Rei along at first until she began running of her own volition. "Weren't we going to get out of here?"

"The class building is full of people trying to get out! We're going to head to the roof to check on the state of things!" Hisashi relayed part of his plan to Rei, who was just relieved to have one.

"Isn't that Wakisaka from current events?" As Rei said that Hisashi rushed forward and stabbed straight through his head, Takashi bashing it in to be completely sure he was dead.

"What are you guys doing?" Rei screeched, wondering why they thought it was a good idea to kill one of their teachers. Hisashi moved aside to show Wakisaka to her. Blood was coming out of his nose and eyes and even covered some of his shirt. More importantly, his whole body seemed wrong, too pale and veiny to be normal, especially his leg which had more blood on it though the flow had stopped a while ago if the dark, almost black color and dryness to it was any indication.

"He'd already turned when we ran into him." He looked back to Takashi whose grimace deepened as he stared at the body.

The three turned as they heard a guttural chorus from down the hall. At least a dozen zombies shambling towards them.

"This way," Hisashi waved them on. Rei and Takashi followed without any more prompting. As they reached the stairs he immediately went up bursting out of the door onto the rooftop. "Just as I thought." Hisashi turned to his childhood friends, seeing the looks of abject horror on them. He locked the door and pulled both of them up the stairs, quickly blocking the stairs.

Takashi and Rei stared at the chaos before them, taking in every detail with wide eyes while Hisashi got to work putting together the things they'd need to escape. He looked off into the distance, expecting the helicopters at any moment. When he finished setting up he rushed over to his friends, seeing the copters fast approaching. As they flew overhead he made sure to cover Rei, who gladly held onto him, violently shaking as she did. "Blackhawks," he noted as they passed, ruggling up everyone's clothes.

"Hey! Help us!" Rei shouted, waving her arms wildly. Hisashi sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "They're not here for us, they have some order or another to carry out. Besides," he started looking out among the school, "they won't notice us with what's going on." He stood up, helping Rei to do so as well as he walked over to the hose. "We'll leave in a bit, first we should see if Rei's father will answer now." He hoped the call wouldn't disconnect.

Takashi handed his phone back over to Rei. She looked at the schoolyard for a second, then the city, eventually setting her face into an expression of determination and dialing her father's number.

"He picked up," she smiled brightly at the others, their spirits lifted a bit at that.

"Hello? This number... is this Takashi-kun?"

"Dad! It's me, Rei! We're at school!"

When he replied her face brightened up even more, though Hisashi started to think instead. They needed to get down to the entrance but Hisashi didn't know any ways that wouldn't be brimming with Them. He turned to Takashi. "Hey, do you know any lesser known ways to the entrance?" Takashi nodded. "Good, after Rei's done we can head down then." He nodded again.

"I got cut off," Rei said, staring at the phone.

"What'd he say?" Hisashi asked, hoping for some good news.

"He's at the station," She started, face scrunching up a bit in worry as she did. "They're still busy at the moment dealing with a whole a bunch of stuff. He doesn't know if mom's safe either." Tears started to appear in her eyes as she said that.

"Rei," she looked at him, "we'll find them, and when we do, they'll be fine," that was really all he could hope for. He didn't know how Rei would react if she found out either of her parents, or, worst case scenario, both of them, died. She didn't seem sure on whether to believe him or not but smiled nonetheless.

"Yeah, thanks Hisashi," He nodded and moved towards the hose.

"It's time to leave," He said, turning to Takashi. "Start making a bunch of noise, once I'm in position and we've got a bunch of them nearby, pull it down and I'll blast them with the hose." Takashi nodded and rushed over to the railing, banging on it with the bat to draw Them. Three minutes passed and Hisashi nodded at Takashi, who took a deep breath and pulled at their makeshift barrier. When They came rushing in Hisashi turned the hose on, knocking Them all down. "Go! Down the rail!" Takashi lead the way, Rei soon following after him. Once they reached the bottom, Hisashi turned the hose off and went right after them. There was still a lot that could go wrong but he would rely on what he knew until then.

o0o

{Kohta}

Bad as it was to feel this way, Kohta was rather happy about what was going on. When Thomas had told them how he had a bad feeling about this week they'd all just shrugged it off, except for Hirano. He'd had bad feelings all the time, and more often than not, they proved right.

He was rather glad he'd listened to him now, especially as he held the modded nail gun in front of himself.

"What are you humming to yourself for?! They're coming!" Earlier he'd ignored Takagi in favor of grabbing all the things he wanted, er, thought would be helpful. He had regretted that when she started yelling at him about it.

A smile that most would call bloodthirsty stretched across Kohta's face. "Let them." They started coming in, arms reaching out and teeth gnashing as they approached. Oddly enough, Kohta didn't feel a single bit scared.

"Hi-Hirano?" He responded by pulling the trigger and cackling as he saw one of them go down. He continued shooting. "Grab all the stuff on the table," he said, letting out a particularly vicious laugh as he shot down Kurokami, one of his previous tormentors.

"What's wrong with you? Ordering me around?!" Takagi's voice rose at first before she saw them start to head towards her.

Kohta turned around after firing at the closest one, smiling gently at her "if you would," his mouth twitched "be so kind." Takagi nodded dumbly as he finished of the last of them. The two of them leaving the room.

He grabbed one of the bags and made to lead the way. If things were going as they should be then he knew where they would need to go next. Takagi started to open her mouth to argue with that but fell silent as he quickly punched one of those, things.

After running for a while Takagi stopped when she saw another one. Kohta got closer as she moved to grab a towel from a bucket. "They respond to sound and heat," he grabbed the towel and threw it at a locker. When she looked at him for an explanation he shrugged. "I'll tell you on the way, we need to get going." She scowled fiercely but followed after him anyway, no reason to waste his distraction after all.

"We need to pick the pace, we'll be in trouble if we take too long,"

Seeing as there weren't any zombies nearby she decided to let him have it, "then pick up the pace fatty! You're probably like this since you only ever drive!"

"Um, well, I don't have a driver's license or a car," Kohta said, a little miffed she called him fat since he'd slimmed down a bit, apparently not enough however.

It was then that he realized Takagi had yelled at him. In a hallway.

That, of course, was when they basically started spilling out of whatever room they'd been idling in. Heading for the both of them. A frown settled on Kohta's face as he started shooting at them. "How can you be so good at this if you've never done it before?!"

He really wished she would be quiet "Takagi-san, could you please help me fight them?! I'm almost out of ammo!"

"I'll help when you're out!" He looked behind her.

"But they're right behind you." She whirled around and fell on her butt when she saw that one of them was indeed behind her. "Get away, get away," she whimpered, tears forming as it drew closer. She screamed as it fell forward, shoving a drill into its head as she screeched at it, "don't come any closer!" The thing fell to the side and she saw that her actions were unnecessary since it had a knife sticking out of its head. She stared at the thing in shock as other people rushed those that surrounded them.

"I'll take the ones on the right!" Takashi called out, running towards his goal.

"I'll take care of the left side!" Rei called back, going opposite Takashi.

As they departed, a girl that Kohta didn't recognize rushed those in the middle.

"Nice one!" Takashi high-fived Hisashi as he went to get his knife from the one that had almost gotten Takagi. After they finished, everyone took turns introducing themselves while Rei and Shizuka checked on Takagi.

"We were planning on heading to the parking lot for a bus, but I'm glad none of Them got you," Hisashi said as they headed somewhere to get Takagi cleaned up.

"Them?" Shizuka asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"They might look like something out of a movie or a video game. But we can't call them 'zombies.' And so, they are 'Them.'" As he said that, Kohta seemed to get what he was getting at and nodded his head, followed shortly after by the others.

When they got to a suitable place Takagi headed to the restroom to wash off while the others had a break. They began to discuss their families and soon found out that everyone's family except Hisashi's, as they were away for a business meeting, were close by.

When Takagi came back it was to see the others watching a report on the TV. The image of a clean cut, well-dressed man in his 30's in the center of the shot. "Due to many riots throughout the country, the government has been forced to rethink its emergency policy. However, when questioned on what the self-defense force would be able to do in order to maintain public order they refused to comment. The local death toll has already surpassed 600. The- what the hell?" Everyone watched as the body bags that had been laid out for all to see were starting to get up, some of them even started to rip through before the reporter was taken by surprise for an unaccounted body and started to scream. The feed cutting off soon after, going back to the studio, who attempted to brush off what had just happened.

No one said a word.

600 dead and counting?! Kohta couldn't imagine how much worse it was going to get if this was only in the first few hours or however long.

How were they going to make it through this?

Kohta looked at the others and saw the same thing on all of their faces.

Kohta remembered what Thomas had said when he'd asked how bad he felt.

 ** _Expect the worst._**

He'd had no idea at the time just how right Thomas was.

o0o

{Morita}

What the fuck was going on? Morita ran his hand through his hair. He sat on top of some random roof.

Last he'd remembered, he'd told Takashi—Holy shit, was he okay? —that he was going to hide out at the dorms but when he got there one of his buds tried to rip his face off. After he accidentally bashed the guy's brains in when he caused him to trip and fall, Morita had started freaking out. Sure, the guy had been trying to have him for lunch but that didn't mean he wanted to get arrested for killing him. Then things had just gotten worse when he saw someone down the hall trying to run before being ripped into by whoever was in the room with him. Once he started seeing and hearing that happen a lot closer and more frequently than he ever wanted it to be, he ran away.

Shortly after he'd been ambushed by another person, only surviving due to how buff he'd gotten recently. Then it happened again and again, and Morita knew that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, this was not something just happening to him. It was at that point that he'd decided to do the other thing he'd learned recently and managed to jump about until he could get to a roof that was otherwise inaccessible.

So here he was. And he wasn't any closer to puzzling out what the flying fuck was going on.

He rubbed his face and groaned. A bunch of zoms down on the street apparently heard that and looked up at him. His face twisted into a harsh glare. He stood straight up and grabbed a can off the roof, rearing back to throw it. "Hey, asshole! Eat this!" He launched it and heard a clang as the can made contact with its head. He nodded in satisfaction until a thought suddenly struck him.

Why was there a can of soda on the roof when no one else was supposed to be here? He turned to where he'd picked up the can and started to curse. "Son of a-" He cut himself off as he saw that it was just a bunch of stuff that had belonged to someone at some point, the person was no longer here, however.

He looked around and saw a body on the floor around the building. Morita looked towards the ledge and saw a pair of shoes there, the fancy kind that he saw free runners use. The guy must've jumped.

Morita went over to his stuff, poking around the pack.

Most of it's still here, I guess he just brought along in case he wanted to enjoy it before jumping. Well, I hope he doesn't mind if I use it. Before taking up the pack Morita muttered a quick prayer.

"Please don't haunt me, dude." He muttered, hefting his find and getting ready to leave. Being safe here was fine and all but he wanted to be somewhere safe and comfortable.

Hopefully I can find Takashi or something, Morita thought, he seems like he'd be pretty good at surviving this thing, especially if he's together with Hisashi. Or maybe Thomas, he has that hobby so he seems pretty good too. Morita stopped in his tracks.

Oh shit, Thomas! Hisashi! Kohta! Why did he keep forgetting his friends? If I find them I'm gonna make sure to bring them something or hope they don't find out.

Morita sighed. I guess anyone would be fine as long as they're not completely useless.

Especially if they were hot. Morita grinned. He hoped they were hot, like Busujima or Takagi.

As if, them joining a group with him or one of his buds wasn't gonna happen.

He sighed, it was nice to dream about though.

Ah, if only.

o0o

 _Well, he's not useless_ , Morita thought to himself, looking over the guy he'd managed to befriend.

Kazu Ishii, second year. Not scrawny and not shaking like a leaf, even if he was admittedly kind of scared looking. Definitely not the worst that could've happened.

When they'd met both of them were surprised to see another person that was alive, completely that is.

Morita had struggled to hold in his relief at the sight of another person and instead settled for happily introducing himself and telling Kazu his story after they moved into a building to rest.

"So, how did things go on your side?" He asked, taking a swig of a water bottle he'd looted from some sap.

"Well," Kazu said, drinking from his own bottle, wetting his throat as he got ready to tell his tale.

"I was with Marikawa-sensei trying to help with a patient that had been bitten." He scowled, "It was my friend, Okada Shuji. Eventually he died, and Marikawa-sensei didn't know what to do, then he got back up. After that I had to..." he swallowed and crushed his bottle a little. "I had to kill him, so I did."

He looked a bit confused as moved on, "a few weeks ago, some guy came to the school looking for Shido-sensei and when Marikawa-sensei saw him she said hi, asking him what he was doing there. Well, he told us but neither of us knew where Shido-sensei was so we just said sorry we couldn't help." When he stopped this time, his confusion went up a level in magnitude. "Then he looked at my face for a bit before suddenly grabbing my hand. Both of us were shocked at that, then he stared at my hand for a few seconds before telling me to stay away from windows for the next month or so. Marikawa-sensei was very excited that he could read fortunes, so she asked for hers, he took her hand and told her to not wear any tight or designer skirts for the next month." He laughed a bit as he moved onto the next part, "I had pushed that out of my mind until today, I turned around to look out the window when I suddenly remembered it and stepped away from the window I was in front of, then the glass shattered and some zombies spilled in."

Morita's eyes widened considerably, "really? No way! What was this dude's name?"

Kazu had to think for a bit until he could recall it. "Vega, something,"

Morita's eyes fully bugged out, "Did he have curly hair or droopy eyes?" Kazu nodded, surprised that Morita knew the guy.

"Son of a bitch, he did it again." Kazu was about to ask what he was talking about, but Morita just went on ahead. "Oh, sorry, dude, you were saying about your side of the story?" Kazu just blinked at the sudden change of topics.

"Uh, right, so after that a third year named Busujima Saeko came in and saved us," Morita sagged a bit in his seat, muttering something about everyone but him meeting her. "When she was done they started to take off for the entrance I think but I decided to split up and look for another one of my friends." He sighed, "I didn't have any luck finding them, so I just set out by myself,"

"Seriously? That takes balls dude," Kazu didn't seem to know what to say to the sudden praise.

"Uh, thanks. But anyways that's pretty much it, after that, I started trying to reach another friend's house until I met you." When he finished his story Kazu took another long drink of water.

"What's their name?"

"Sachiko."

"Well, I think we've had a long enough break," Morita abruptly stood up, taking a quick drink and then putting it in his pack. "You ready to head out?" Kazu just nodded, a bit confused.

"Alright, let's head out!" Morita pumped his fist, getting excited at the thought of meeting a cute girl. Or better, Morita thought as he inwardly waggled his eyebrows.

o0o

[1st]

I sneezed. Then I recalled what that usually meant in manga.

Was that really a thing?

I shrugged my shoulders. Didn't matter, right now I was heading to Kouno's. I wasn't sure what going over there would do as if they were there I'd feel bad when I left and if they weren't I would be worried about them, but I had decided to go anyways. Knowing and regretting it is better than not knowing and regretting it I guess.

I sighed.

My stomach was twisting into knots just thinking about what could've happened to them.

I sped up a bit.

Usually it wouldn't have taken me this long just to get to their house but even taking shortcuts took longer than it used to, for obvious reasons of course.

As I landed in someone's yard I dashed out of my roll and slid my knife right through the top of the zombie's skull. Continuing as if nothing had happened.

That had to have been the hundredth one at least.

I didn't do a very good job of keeping the numbers down. That thought made me a bit more worried for the Kouno's.

 _The best I could hope for is all of them being together for some reason, I don't think Satoru or Ayame could survive this by themselves._

I vaulted another fence, the last one if memory served.

When I saw the Kouno's house, my spirits briefly lifted. Then I remembered that they could all be dead in there, or worse. I definitely didn't want to run into run into child zombies.

 _That would add a whole new meaning to the term little nippers_. I stopped. Then I punched myself. I guess my sense of humor was still intact, even if it wasn't very welcome at the moment.

I went around and killed any zombies within a 10 or 20-meter radius, hoping that would be enough for the zombies to not hear it when I knocked on the door.

I knocked.

Nothing.

I knocked a little bit louder.

Still nothing.

 _Please tell me they're not all dead._

"Hello? It's me, Thomas." I said quietly, leaning back from the door to make sure nothing was coming closer.

When the silence continued I knelt and reached into one of my pockets, pulling out some lock picks.

I was pretty confident I could open a normal door like this.

A few minutes later I heard the lock click. Or was that a gun?

I turned around. Nope, not a gun. Good. I grabbed the knob and twisted it, opening the door.

No bodies at the entrance. That was a plus.

I stopped when I stepped looked more closely at the floor. Blood.

 _Fuuuuuudge_. I lowered my body, softly closing the door and following the trail.

It was Aoi.

I grit my teeth, looking at his body. There was small, neat hole in his head. At least he's completely dead, I don't think he would want to be stuck as a zombie.

I put my back against the wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor. Then I lowered my head into my hands.

 _God, what a cock up this was_. It wasn't entirely my fault but that didn't mean it wasn't at all. Someone, Aoi, was dead. Satoru and Ayame's second son was dead.

 _Didn't he have a girlfriend?_ I raised my head out of my hands and looked at him again. His fingers were missing. Must've tried calming down a zombie or something.

I reached into his pockets, taking out his stuff.

I started with his wallet, though I didn't need to look long, there was a picture of him and his girlfriend smiling for the camera, apparently these were taken in a booth if the stickers and format were of any indication.

 _Chitoge, Marikawa Chitoge, that was her name_. When I joined the others I would see if Shizuka could contact her sister so I could tell her the news.

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck.

I looked back at Aoi. Despite the no doubt, awful circumstances for his death, his face looked at peace. _Man, I messed up._

I plopped back down and buried my face in my hands again, clenching my eyes shut. They just barely got over losing Ayane, now they had to worry about this?

I rubbed my face and sighed for what felt like the thousandth time.

Now wasn't really the time for this, I had to get to Shizuka's before I could properly mourn or feel sorry for myself.

My eyes shot open, Shizuka's place was across town from here.

I groaned.

I didn't really have the time to dig either, but I could at least give him some burial rights or something.

I dragged his body to the backyard and put it down a few meters away from the door.

I tried to remember what I'd looked up for this purpose, though I hadn't been expecting or hoping to use it this soon.

Wet the face or lips I think. I pulled some water from my pack and put a tiny splash on his face.

Flowers, uh, coins. Maybe. I got a couple of flowers and pulled some coins from his pocket, "Sorry, man," I apologized, I just didn't have any change on me since it, you know, jangled.

Last I placed his photos of him and Chitoge on top of his chest.

I nodded at him. "I hope everything goes well," I paused briefly, grinding my jaw again "and I'm sorry."

Then I left.

This had better be the only personal death I have to deal with for the next decade or I would find the thing that caused this, bring it back if it was dead, and kill it again.

o0oo0oo0o

Writing is suffering, I tell ya. I was working on this thing for like 10 hours straight, and that's not counting the first two or three sections. But yeah, here it is, my masterpiece, and what's sad is that some of it isn't even mine, it's just slightly rehashed parts from the first two chapters of the manga. Not to worry though, the major changes will come, eventually.


	9. Chapter 9: Spring III

Parings, as requested by Jack oh lantern. (Hisashi/Rei), (Kohta/Asami), (Thomas/Things going according to Keikaku). These are not final, they are what is planned as of 1/31/18

o0oo0oo0o

IX

[3rd] {The Group}

Everyone was in the bus now, the one they'd set out for earlier. They'd even picked up more people, unfortunately, some of those people were previous followers of Shido. They were the minority thankfully.

No one was seemed more bothered by their presence about that than Kohta, who Hisashi saw was giving them a baleful glare.

He grabbed the group's attention by calling them to him.

As they'd left, it had been insinuated, if not confirmed that Hisashi was the leader among them as he kept everyone safe, beyond what Saeko or Kohta was. He'd even managed to save Takuzo, the second group they'd found, and his friends from drawing their attention, stopping one of his members and making sure that their weapon didn't hit anything, keeping Their attention off of everyone as they'd made their to the bus.

They hadn't known how much tension letting Shido's group on would cause until they were already on their way.

Hisashi grimaced, he didn't want the others know just how much he knew until they were safe at Shizuka's place. Prying ears and disbelievers who would take time to convince, despite the evidence he had, his main concerns.

"Alright, so we've got a pretty big group," he started, making sure he had everyone's attention, "it's gonna be hard to find somewhere that can fit all 7 of us-"

"7? Are we abandoning these people?" Rei appeared a bit scandalized.

"Of course, having too big of a group without the resources required to keep it up is idiotic." Takagi said, not caring how abrasive her statement was.

Rei narrowed her eyes and prepared to say something before Hisashi just put his hand out, "That's right, but try to be a bit more down low when you talk Takagi, I can't imagine being so loud is going to be very smart or helpful at a time like this," Takagi started to bring up a scathing reply before noticing that he was right, especially as she recalled the times it got her and Kohta in trouble, she looked like she'd swallowed something incredibly sour and just harrumphed as she stayed quiet.

"That being said, does anyone have a house that could keep all of us without being crowded while also being relatively safe?" Everyone but Saeko and Shizuka immediately shook their head. Saeko started to shake hers at the same time that Shizuka raised her hand but quickly put it back on the wheel to make sure she didn't crash the bus since she already had enough driving it. Hisashi caught both gestures and nodded, inwardly relieved that no one else had a place to offer.

"Is it your boyfriend's place?" Takagi said, grinning a bit as she did up until the vehicle briefly swerved, everyone reaching out to hold onto whatever they could. "Th-this is different. It's one of my girlfriend's places."

Kohta laughed, while Takagi flushed a bit at the fact that she'd almost made them crash while the others had various states of smiles on their faces. Hisashi spoke up after he had finished laughing, "then it's settled, we'll head to Marikawa-sen-"

"Hey!" They turned their head to see one of Shido's people, Tsunoda, Kohta would later remember him as, walk over to them in a huff, face red and not at all pleased with the sudden movement. "What the hell are you guys smiling about, can't you drive straight?!" Shizuka went around one of the abandoned vehicles in the road, causing the bus to shake and Tsunoda to lose his footing again, barely managing to stay upright. "Can't you drive any slower?! I almost-"

Shizuka whirled around to him, eyes narrowed in focus and anger, "That's enough, lay off of me! I've never driven one of these before!" Tsunoda flinched, not expecting her to offer any kind of rebuttal. He turned to Takashi, who'd been staring at him the whole time and started glaring at him instead.

Hisashi looked over to Kohta as they argued, the look on his face had intensified from earlier, approaching murderous, if it wasn't already there. When Kohta took a step forward Takagi held a hand out to stop him as Rei stepped in to interfere, swinging the handle she'd gotten from earlier into Tsunoda's body, lifting him off of his feet. As he slammed down onto the floor, everyone, Kohta included, stared at Rei in astonishment while she fixed him with a look of intense disgust.

"You're horrible," Her gaze was comparable to one looking at a roach or scum. Everyone stewed in the silence for a bit until he started to get back up.

"You...bitc-" He didn't get to finish his statement as a nail lodged itself into his head, his body hitting the floor again, this time without him getting up or stirring.

This time the looks were aimed at Kohta, although they weren't just ones of astonishment. Takagi was the first to speak, trying to school her expression but failing and just deciding to talk. "Hirano, what are you doing?!" She glanced at the body on the floor before turning back to him.

"How many people," He started out soft, looking down at the floor, face blank before swiftly changing to righteous anger. "How many people do you think beat me up at school? Only a few of the worst of them are right here, don't even try to tell me I dserved it! I've restrained myself! I've always held it in because I wanted to have a normal life! But that doesn't exist anymore so you better believe I won't hesitate to kill any of them that I come across now! Or anyone like them!" When he finished yelling he turned to those he recognized and pointed the nail gun towards them, "get out." When no one moved he pointed it to a specific person, finger slowly squeezing the trigger, "NOW!"

Shizuka barely got the doors open in time for them to bolt out of them, faces of abject terror on all of them.

The bus started to back up, everyone taking their time to collect themselves after what had just happened.

"Hirano, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Takagi was quick to turn on Kohta, vehemently pointing a finger at his person as she stepped closer to him. "Even if our group is too big and that-" she pointed to Tsunoda before stopping as she looked a bit queasy at the sight of his body, quickly turning away from it and pretending that she hadn't brought it up, "some people are unpleasant, that doesn't mean you can kick them to the curb like that!"

Kohta's whole body tensed, his face reverting to the glare from earlier, "unpleasant? Takagi-san, those people have beaten me senseless, this goes beyond unpleasant!" Everyone else shifted their attention from the two to anywhere but them rapidly, quite uncomfortable with the rising heat in their voices and volume.

Takagi looked taken aback by that but pressed on with her argument, "you've seen what happens to people that don't have any protection! You can't just send those people to their death like that!"

Kohta shock with bottled up rage. "THE HELL I CAN'T! I-" Everyone turned as a monstrous clang rang throughout the bus, only to see Takashi holding his bat above a warped section of metal, with the new silence, Hisashi nodded his thanks and turned to everyone else. "You both need to calm down, even if it They couldn't hear you through the windows, this is neither the time nor the place for an argument, we have to talk about our plan of action and get somewhere safe. After that you two can talk out this mess civilly, and I do mean civilly."

Takagi looked ready to turn her fury on Hisashi for telling her what to do, but chose not to upon seeing and feeling the aura of authority and almost parental scolding, choosing to angrily pout after heavily sitting down, grounding out a "well?" as she waited for Hisashi to speak. Kohta breathed deeply while clenching his gun, soon after looking a little embarrassed at his outburst and raising his voice at Takagi, or, anyone really.

Satisfied the children were done with their spat, even if only temporarily, Hisashi huffed and recollected his thoughts, briefly speaking to Shizuka before deciding to inform the others. "Okay, so as I was saying, we're going to Marikawa-sensei's place, she says its got a lot of stuff that could be useful, including a better vehicle. We'll spend the night there since I doubt we could get anywhere with all, this." He waved outside to the zombies they could see as they drove past. "We'll get up early to head out for whoever's houses are closest, does that sound good?" He looked around, searching everyone's faces for a sign of disagreement. After no objections he smiled a bit, feeling a bit lighter. "After we get to Shizuka's, we'll hand the bus off to Takuzo and his group since we'll have a new ride." Again, no one seemed to object, so Hisashi just breathed in deeply and nodded. "Alright, well, everyone just cool off until then. We should be there within the next half an hour."

Despite the threat that had ripped apart their lives, sitting in a bus driven by a teacher and talking and laughing with each other got everyone's minds off of the terrible state of affairs, all of them knew it wouldn't last but they were going to enjoy it for as long as they could.

o0o

[1st]

Great, just swell. I sighed heavily, stomach turning a tad as I saw the pile of bodies before me. I'd taken a break from running to Shizuka's, choosing to instead slowly make my way on people's rooftops. Less than 10 minutes after doing so, I'd spotted what I'd assumed to be a blockade, and in a way it was; the issue was not only the multitude of people that I could see from here, but that the vehicles and debris in the area stopped me from taking the path I had wanted. In order to make things easier on myself, I just memorized a few possible paths throughout certain areas since I hadn't really I would be spending much time in this one, nor had I thought I could stuff all the paths, along with everything else I'd been learning for the past 6 months. Not only would this keep me from reaching everyone for longer, but blocking the road ahead lead to more zombies being basically right in front of me, cutting off both parts of my initial plan. I sat down, thinking about what to do, then I looked down and saw the balcony right in front of me. I could see if there was a computer in there and blast it at full volume, see if it cleared the road up enough for me to pass through.

Good a plan as any, I guess.

I slid down soundlessly, landing and twisting around only to see a face in the window. I gulped down whatever noise I'd just about made, endlessly thankful that it hadn't just smashed out of the door and berating myself for looking over the roof before dropping down. After a second of staring at it, I realized it wasn't a zombie I was looking at but just a really pale boy. The only thing that really seemed zombie like was the pale skin and prominent veins. I looked down at his hands, and added that to the similarities.

Neither of us moved, just staring at each other. Then I recalled my time limit and just poked the door, hoping he'd be willing to talk or would at least give me a chance to dodge before trying to kill me.

"Kill me." My eyebrows went up, I wasn't really sure how to respond. He seemed to take that as asking for him to explain and he just nodded at me, getting ready to do so. "I got bit while trying to kill my family. I'm honestly surprised I'm still alive, but I want to stay that way, in spirit at least or something." I had forgotten this kind of thing just happened, although now that the thought was there, I remembered the guy who'd molested Rei in canon, hopefully that hadn't happened or wouldn't if the time hadn't come yet.

I found myself nodding, a tired smile coming to the boy's face when I did. "Ah, but is there a computer I can use?" He looked confused when I asked but nodded anyways, "where is it?" He pointed to a corner behind me. "Is there a password?" He shook his head, the puzzled look still there. "I needed a distraction, if you want I can lock the door or something so they don't get in, or at least not as easily." The boy nodded, not saying anything else.

I just readied myself for what I was going to do, not even a whole day in and I was already mercy killing someone. Man, what a load this universe was. The boy just sat down on his bed, waiting for me. As I began walking over, I realized I didn't even know his name. The...right thing to do, I guess, would be to make sure he's remembered, even if only a tiny part of him. "What's your name?" I stopped in front of him, asking as I looked down and slipped my knife from its sheath.

"Tachibana Yuta," He didn't seem to care about why I asked, just lifted his head and sat up straight, preparing himself.

I stood still, looking closely at him. The paleness I could now attribute to the blood I saw coming from his arm, even as the flow had already stopped, couple that with the somber look on his face and he looked half way to being a zombie. Seeing the pictures that were scattered about the room I could see that he'd been happy, full of life, before this.

One, two, three. The knife slid right through the top of his head. I caught his body as he slumped forward, lowering him gradually onto his bed and moving him around a little. After making sure he was situated, I locked the front door and his, blocking both of them with some light furniture and making sure all other entrances were tightly shut as well.

That being done, I walked to the computer he had and turned it on, finding a song that was loud online and making sure the speakers were at the highest volume, bringing some earplugs out of one of my pockets. Here goes.

Even with the earplugs in I could still hear the music blasting out of the speakers, not to mention feel the bass throughout my everything. I had no doubts that the zombies would be coming from the next few streets over, at least.

And, I'm out of here, I went out the way I came in originally and closed the door, getting on the railing and jumping onto the roof. Already, I could see dozens of them, at least, making their way over here and pounding on the house or pawing up at where the actual sound was coming from, I could even see some trying to get out of the pile of bodies. Once there was a sufficient amount for me to casually stroll across the street I jumped off onto the street and made my way over to the other side, passing by the dead end (heh) and going down another street, back on track.

I absently wondered how the others were doing and if my help, however slight it was, had helped them do better.

o0o

[3rd] {Takashi}

Takashi hadn't gotten to know Takuzo and his group all that well but was still slightly sad to see them go. Everyone made small talk on the way here, and there being only a dozen of them, talking amongst each other had been easy, even with the circumstances. Nonetheless, when they reached Shizuka's place, they'd given the smaller group the bus and said their farewells. They'd been quick to encounter a few of Them, and even quicker to finish Them off.

After that, they'd gone inside and started to talk about what they would do now that they had a safe house. Again, Hisashi had stepped forward with a plan, Takashi had to admit, he was happy his best friend was so capable, he doubted he would be all that good as a leader himself. The girls would shower first, something which made Takagi very happy, and the boys would check the place out, see what kind of stuff was here, switching places after the girls finished up.

"Sounds like they're having fun." Takashi tried to talk over the shrill screams of excitement that were coming from the bathroom, looking down at Kohta as they set a crowbar into one of the container's in Shizuka's friend's place.

"Want to see if there's anything to 'protect them from' in there?" Kohta asked, a lecherous grin on his face as they started to pull back.

"I don't want to die yet." Takashi shook his head, keeping his focus on their current task and wondering where Kohta's sudden bravery came from, Hisashi softly chuckling at the current conversation.

"I'm gonna see if anyone else is ok," Hisashi waved his phone and stepped outside, leaving the other two to it.

"Here we go! 1! 2! 3! Whoa!" Both of them surged forwards as the container finally gave in. Takashi was the first to get up, taking the time to look over their new stuff and pulling Kohta up.

A grin most would call dangerous or creepy peeled across Kohta's face, fixing the weapons inside with a look bordering on the indecent. "Just as I thought..."

"This is Shizuka-sensei's friends's house...just what kind of friends does she have?" Instead of answering, Kohta grabbed a gun and started looking it over, practically vibrating with excitement.

"A Springfield M1A1 Super Match, huh? But it's only semi-automatic. Well, the M14 series is full-auto. This is less wasteful when it comes to ammunition." He moved his hands carefully over the gun, as if it was a baby or something precious.

"Um, Hirano?"

"This is a 20 round magazine! This is illegal in Japan. It's illegal. Heheh." As the chubby boy continued salivating and muttering to himself Takashi sighed and went to grab one of the guns out of the locker.

"That's an Ithaca M35 Riot Shotgun! It was designed by an American. It's one badass shotgun. It was used in the Vietnam war." Takashi looked at the gun briefly and swung it towards Kohta, smiling when he quickly moved out of the way of the muzzle. Mood dampening when he was told the only proper target.

"Them, that's the best way to use these." They stared solemnly at the gun and what it meant, this wasn't a joke, these things, along with the ammo, would be some of the only things standing between the 7 of them, and becoming one of Them.

o0o

"They've gotten louder," Kohta was looking towards where the girls were, face touched with worry.

"They're fine, They react to sound and we're not the loudest ones around." Takashi looked through binoculars they'd found Watching the beginning of a protest taking place. "It's getting worse, it looks like a blockade has been put up by the police." He handed the binoculars over to Kohta so he could see the situation for himself.

"It's starting to look like some kind of movie," Kohta said, frowning at what he was seeing.

Takashi had grabbed the remote, planning to watch the news as he'd seen a few vans on the bridge. "The police have the place barricaded and it looks like some people are being rounded up for a protest. At the moment it doesn't look like a sizable enough group to do anything yet but they seem very set on speaking against the police."

"The police? I'm glad Rei isn't here right now, she'd probably be screaming at the top of her lungs about how her dad is doing his best to keep them safe and how they're being so ungrateful or something like that." Takashi was pissed, trying his best not to tear into these guys himself. "More importantly, what are they blaming the police for? It's not like they had a hand in any of this, dead bodies just started walking around and attacking people!"

"They're just trying to cause hysteria, or is this one of the effects of the disease?" Takashi was about to reply when they heard a loud noise followed by a scream from outside and rushed over to the window again to see what was going on. Some poor sap had had the misfortune to bump into a car, getting all of Them nearby to charge him at once. Both boys grimaced, backing up to get away from the grisly scene.

A pair of hands loomed over Takashi, by the time Kohta noticed, Takashi was already being pulled in. The next thing he knew, a giant pair of boobs were dangling next to his face, their owner clinging onto him soon after.

"Koomuurookuu~n." Shizuka pulled him in for a sloppy kiss on his cheek, Takashi's eyes bugging out.

"S-sensei? Are you drunk?"

"Just a teensy weensy bit. Fufuu~. Ah." Shizuka unevenly turned towards Kohta, arms wide open for a hug. "Kohta-cha~n."

"Chan? Err, um." The boy nervously stuttered and laughed, face going red and leaking blood when Shizuka planted a kiss on his cheek as well. Takashi dragged the nurse off to lecture her while Kohta recovered, eventually deciding to put her to bed and picking her up, eliciting some kind of high-pitched noise from Shizuka.

"You're just a little pervert Komuro-kun!" She started tracing circles on his head, heavily breathing into the teen's ear. His face started to light up, a little grin forming on it.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it."

"Takashi~." He froze up, turning to the second voice and seeing Rei. "Where's Hisashi~?" She stumbled towards Takashi, who looked a lot more overwhelmed now that there was two drunk people in front of him. "He's on the balcony," he tried pointing but stopped when Shizuka almost slipped off, something she just giggled at.

"Okay," Rei nodded and proceeded to move in the completely wrong direction.

"Wait, Rei, hold on, please, I'll bring him in a second just hold on." He left without confirming that she'd heard him, making for a room that would gave Shizuka some privacy, spotting Takagi resting on a nearby couch, hopefully she'd help Shizuka dress up when she woke up. Quickly making his way back, Takashi saw Rei absently starting to nod off. He went to get Hisashi anyway.

"Hey, Hisashi, Rei needs you," His friend nodded, coming over to the door. "How many calls did you make? You've been out here for a while."

Hisashi frowned, "It must've been at least thirty."

"Thirty? We hardly even know more than ten people, and two of those are here, why'd you call thirty?"

"Not thirty people, thirty calls." Hisashi's grimace deepened as he said that, waiting for Takashi to get what he meant.

"What? Oh." He fell silent for a moment. "How many people picked up?"

"Two. Morita and Tom, the calls didn't even take that long, I've just been," He struggled to find the word he wanted "thinking, I guess."

The silence got heavier. "I guess you need Rei right now then too, huh?" Hisashi nodded and started to move past Takashi, stopping when Takashi put his hand on Hisashi's shoulder. "We have each other, that's the most I could ask for," Hisashi nodded, a small smile coming to his face before he continued inside.

Takashi thought to himself for a second. His family, Takashi's parents, Rei's parents, his instructor and maybe three friends from school. Other than those already accounted for, that was Hisashi's contacts list.

Tonight would be rough. He looked over to where Rei was, the three of them would definitely need each other if they wanted to get through this. Takashi steeled his resolve, he would make sure they lived. Come rain, Them or hellfire.

They would live.

o0o

{Hisashi}

Hisashi found Rei calling for him at a staircase. "What's up Rei?"

"Hey~ Hisashi~!" Rei swayed a bit while she called to him, at one point only barely managing to keep her balance as Hisashi closed the distance to hold her.

"Are you, drunk?" He asked his girlfriend, surprised.

"Well, I was tired and so much has happened already." She leaned forward and stared intensely at Hisashi, having to focus for her words to come out with any sort of clarity. "You're really nice guy, I'm glad you're around," she leaned on hiim. "I'm not s-sure what I would've done if I'd l-lost you," she was beginning to stumble over her words, forgetting to make sure she was coordinated in order to get her thoughts out into the open, resulting in her relying on Hisashi almost entirely to keep the both of them upright. "'Kashi's a nice guy too, but he's always been soooo, 'Kashi, you know?" She looked blearily at Hisashi, waiting for his confirmation.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean but, we've been friends for a long time, I'm sure he would do whatever he needed to make sure you were alright if I was gone," He smiled genially at her, pulling her in as he did so. "If he didn't I'd make sure to come back and kick his ass," Rei giggled at that and snuggled into Hisashi, enjoying the closeness.

When she didn't speak after that Hisashi pulled back to look at her and saw her eyes closed, her breath coming out almost silently. He smiled again, lifting her so she could sleep somewhere more comfortable. He supposed since the girls were out he should round Kohta and Takashi up so they could bathe too since he wasn't sure when they would next get the chance.

o0o

Conversation had started out innocently enough. Kohta and Hisashi were looking over some of the more civilian stuff they'd found lying around after they'd cleaned up, looking over the plethora of useful things Shizuka's friend had lying around.

Nighttime had already come, so talks had been shifting to use on the weapons, Kohta savagely smiling as he showed off more of his intimate knowledge with the subject.

"This!" Kohta exclaimed, patting the AR-10, "can hold up to 20 rounds in a single magazine and is semi-automatic. With this, They wouldn't even have time to grasp for us before having their heads blown off!" The smile he'd begun with had only grown as he listed off each and every thing about the guns.

"Is the 'they' you're referring to the undead? Or random people?" The two of them turned to face Takagi, whose scowl immediately told that this hadn't been another attempt at a joke.

Kohta's eyes narrowed, shortly mirroring hers. "What do you mean?" He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, hoping the question meant something else, despite how little room for interpretation there was.

It did not. "Just what I said, do you plan on getting rid of Them? Or turning on random people?"

Kohta rose, bristling at the insinuation. "Random people? Those weren't random people, Tsunoda and those that I pushed off deserved everything that happened to them! And worse." His face darkened, his whole body tensing up at the mention of his old tormentors.

"Even if they did, you said you would go after anyone like them! You can't kill people just because they're acting like an asshole!" Takagi took a step closer to Kohta, her face rapidly getting redder.

"If they're like that then why the hell not?!" Kohta didn't back down, challenging her as he took a step forward of his own.

"If you killed someone every time they acted like that, you'd be killing people left and right! Especially with everything that's going on!"

"I'm not gonna kill every jerk we come across!"

"I've only known you for less than a day, and in that time you easily transitioned from a normal person to killing someone without major provocation!"

Things continued like this for the next few minutes, both of them inching closer until they were just about been in each other's faces when Hisashi stepped in, pushing the both of them apart. "Enough! If you're going to argue, I ask that you do so without alerting everyone and everything in the area." The two facing each other down violently turned their heads towards Hisashi, faces flush with anger and unspoken arguments.

They opened their mouths at the same time, whether to yell at Hisashi or each other was unknown, as, right when they started up they heard a throat clearing from down the hall. The person they saw was staring at them with a cold expression.

"Hello. I don't suppose the two of you would mind keeping it down, would you?"

o0o

[1st]

It was late, like, dead of the night late. I had been rushing ever since I saw the sun start going down.

Earlier, Hisashi called. I hadn't had the foresight to silence my phone as I'd assumed that anyone that would call me was either dead or not in possession of a phone. Needless to say, I'd needed to fight off a bunch of ghouls, answering the call and trying to not sound as if I was getting swarmed. I had managed to take out enough of them to climb up a small house, sitting down and talking with Hisashi afterwards.

He told me that him, Takashi and Rei had made it out, along with Takagi, Kohta and a couple people from school; I assumed that was the group from canon.

Then he told me that no one had been bit and they'd taken a bus to the school nurse's place, sort of. He had paused for a second, for what reason I didn't know but when he spoke up next he told me how to find the place, if I was in the area, which would save me some explaining to do for when I got there.

After, I asked what he knew about the whole situation. From what they knew, over 2,000 of the city's populous were dead at the moment and most, if not all, of the world had been affected by this; some of them had even lost contact with the rest of the world. That sounded mostly in line with what I'd remembered, except the death toll seemed a little low, though you wouldn't hear me complaining about that. Lastly, he'd asked me if I remembered that movie we'd seen on Christmas Eve, I'd confirmed I did and he went silent again briefly before telling me he thought the events had lined up with what was going on. I was ecstatic that he'd noticed.

I had agreed after taking some time to make it seem like I was thinking, telling him that I was on the way over as well. He'd told me that they would wait for morning to leave so I could get here and be less at risk.

There wasn't much said after that, well wishes and then a farewell. I'd looked over the area below me and saw those gathered had thinned out in favor of louder noises. Going off of what I remembered, I'd guessed that I would reach them within a few hours. I was probably gonna smell worse than the zombies.

Around 30 minutes ago, Alice suddenly came to mind, making me aware that if things went as they had originally, I wouldn't really be able to join up with them all that easily, as the streets would be filled with zoms.

Which lead to now, with me tearing through the area, hoping I would reach Alice and the dog in time.

"Across from the store, what was it called? Oh Jesus." I was tiring out, again, running or even travelling for most of the day would do that to you, but I couldn't really afford to get tired until I was sure she was okay.

I didn't really care for the character herself; at the moment, I had no memories of her other than the manga or anime but knowing a character exists and seeing or meeting them in real life were radically different things. The only reason I was going after her and the dog was that her part in the group was keeping morale up, something that was endlessly important for the times to come.

I was absolutely sure no one, myself included, could so effortlessly make things happier or forcefully bring out everyone's protective nature like Alice could.

As I ran, I could see some zombies shambling in the same direction. I was pretty sure that was where I needed to be, and if it wasn't, whoever they were heading towards would at least be thankful. If they were still alive and all that.

When I reached the first of them I could hear faint crying, pretty sure that was her, though I guess crying wasn't really exclusive to little kids. I weaved my way through the crowd of zombies, slipping among them and making as little noise as I could, sneaking the knife into every other zombie I passed, whittling their numbers down along the way.

When I got to the gate, I saw her, crying over her father's corpse, Zeke just reaching her and barking at them. Some of them were awful close to her now. What was the group doing? Time to forgo 'Super Stealth Mode.'

I pushed through the zombies, bolting for Alice. Oh god, this was going to be close.

Lashing out, I punched clean through the first one's head, at which point it quickly turned into a mist, moving its body to the side so it didn't fall on Alice. Thank my lucky stars the cestus didn't just get lodged in the zombie.

"Hey there," I moved to the side and swept through a few more, trying to clear up space. "Could you please get the dog to stop?" I didn't wait for her answer and just started to tear through them. Ah, papa bless, it looked like there weren't nearly as many as I'd feared.

There was a sudden lack of barking and I was endlessly thankful. Now I could focus on making sure we didn't die.

One closed in, his lower jaw hanging askew, it looked like someone had tried to kick his head in but only managed to clip him. There were too many close by so I swung him around and threw him onto the nearest group of them, bowling them over. I pulled the knife back out, shearing through a few faces and sending them tumbling to knock over some of the others.

This wasn't about killing all of them, it was about clearing a path to climb onto so I could just run for Rika's.

"Stay close to me," I said lowly, backing up towards Alice, there was no reason to be loud and draw more in, I'd already cleared up a whole bunch of them and would like to keep it that way.

She nodded, getting up on shaky legs. "Um," she started shyly, glancing towards her father and me.

"Yeah?"

"My daddy...he died." She started sniffling again, fresh tears coming up.

Oh right, I looked over to the laundry rack. Pulling a white shirt off and laying it on him. I pulled some flowers I'd brought in preparation for this kind of thing.

I didn't really trust myself to say anything comforting, instead trying to remembering what Takashi had said.

"He died protecting you, he was an amazing person, and father." Hopefully that was close enough. I handed the flowers to her as she knelt, going over to kill those that had stumbled in while we'd been talking and close the gate.

"Dad...dy.." My eyes went wide as I heard her get ready to start back up, rushing over to try and muffle her crying.

"Ahhhhhhh!" I pulled her into my chest, facing away from the zombies struggling to get in. I kept my eye on the gate, hoping it had been brief enough to get out safely. She had a tight grip for a kid.

More were pushing to get in, they were already blocking the way out. Time to go. "Quiet down please, we should get going."

She looked towards the gate, watching the hands reaching through fearfully. "How are we getting out?"

"I'm gonna climb the fence, grab the dog please." I'd been hoping to get those in the area to the gate, so that they'd be away from Rika's place. She did so, still dripping a bit, I pulled a tissue out of another pocket and handed it to her. She blew and grabbed the dog, whose tail wagged when he saw me. "Hey there, buddy. Thanks for not barking at me this time."

I picked Alice up, facing me, with Zeke in between both of us. That should keep him from licking me. I didn't want to nearly fall like Takashi had.

I started making my way around, doing my best to minimize noise. Once we got to the house, I would enter the top second floor, as I'm sure the doors were locked on the first. My best bet would be to hope Rika or more likely Shizuka, had kept the upper floors unlocked since I wasn't really confident in my ability to break into it otherwise.

So far so good.

"Onii-chan?" I nearly stumbled off the ledge, briefly flailing to keep that from happening. What kind of translator didn't change that? Was my own ability trying to kill me? Or, us?

"Please don't call me that." I said once I was sure we wouldn't fall.

"Sorry," Alice seemed sad at that, fudge, didn't mean to hurt her feelings or whatever.

"It's, uh, what's up?" I tried to change topics.

"I have to pee." Guhhhhhhhhhhh, I'd forgotten about this too.

"How long do you think you can hold it?" I already smelled bad enough, I didn't need to add piss to that, especially since I didn't think there would be enough time to wash it.

"I can't," I closed my eyes, deeply sighing.

We reached the place with the shortest distance between walls. I waited for her to start so I didn't mess up the jump and turn us into walker chow.

I heard trickling and was pleasantly surprised to find that my outer layer was water proof, pants included. Thankfully I'd closed my pockets too so nothing would get in them. It was still gross, but at least it wouldn't stain.

"When I say go I'm gonna jump okay?" She nodded, head down so as not to look me in the eye. "One, two, three, go." I crouched and sprang forward, legs out. The foot placement was weird and I spent a bit longer making sure we didn't fall again. Now just to sneak into the house. Easy peasy. "Just hold on a bit longer, we're almost safe," She nodded again, still embarrassed though at least she was done. I was about to say we would get her new clothes too, but I wasn't sure if she would appreciate that.

I jumped up, grabbing a ledge and heaving myself up, checking the window in front of us afterwards to see if it was unlocked. No dice. Onto the next one then, good thing most of this was connected, at least in these circumstances.

I felt one of the windows give and pumped my fist, yelling in victory on the inside. I opened it and put Alice down first, getting in slowly afterwards.

The room I'd entered was a bit dark, lit only by the light coming in from where we'd entered. I saw an outline of a body and tensed, lightly stomping on the floor to make sure the body wasn't gonna kill us, pushing Alice behind me just in case.

When it didn't move I relaxed, letting her step forward. She let Zeke down on the floor, at which point he started sniffing around. I walked to the door, hearing what sounded like muffled shouting coming from outside. Best to make sure it wasn't someone in distress.

"Nnnnnnn, stoppid," I turned upon hearing the person speak up, getting ready to do something in case they got mad at us. I saw Zeke licking the person, who I now knew to be a woman from the high pitched voice, yipping when he saw her start to get up.

I tilted my head. That voice sounded familiar. As the figure rose up, I saw blonde hair through the moonlight, followed shortly after by the person herself.

Hoo boy, was all that came to mind before I turned away from the scene, although I knew the sight was burned into my memory. My face was probably starting to burn now. I needed to get out of here.

"Eh? Vega-kun? What are you doing here? Is this a dream?" I resisted turning to answer Shizuka, instead trying to focus on what to say.

"Yes, it is, just close your eyes and go to sleep." I wanted out, not that this was entirely unpleasant, more that I'd feel like a scumbag if I kept staring when she clearly didn't realize what was going on.

"Why would I do that if I'm dreaming?"

"Please just do it." I really wanted to get out before I fainted from blood rushing to my face. Or anywhere else.

"Okay~," I heard a bed or something creaking, making for the door again once I realized someone was still yelling.

"Stay here please, Alice, and watch the dog." I said, reaching for the knob.

"How did you know my name?" Balls, I forgot she didn't tell me.

"I'm a psychic." I stepped out before she could reply. I really hope she bought it.

I was messing up a lot all of a sudden.

Before I'd even fully opened the door the volume of the yelling had increased considerably, by the time I reached the source, it would probably hurt a bit, that door was awfully good at absorbing sound.

I tried to school my expression, still feeling heat in my cheeks. I felt my face relaxing, my natural neutral/scowl taking place as I breathed in and out.

When I got to the source, I saw Hisashi, Kohta, and Takagi. I cleared my throat, wanting to make sure my voice didn't crack or come out all raspy. Those in the room suddenly turned to me, I felt my body stiffening at the sudden attention.

"Hello. I don't suppose the two of you would mind keeping it down, would you?" That came out a bit more aggressive than I meant it to. Hopefully they didn't take it too badly.

o0o

[3rd]

Hisashi was stunned, he'd been hoping that Thomas would make it, but hadn't actually been expecting him to. Not to speak against him, he was certainly in shape and Hisashi couldn't recall a time when his friend had been below a certain level of calm even when they'd pranked him on his birthday, but he hadn't wanted to get his hopes up.

Thomas certainly looked worse for wear, his clothes were thoroughly ruffled, his face seemed troubled and he smelled like he'd rolled in month old garbage, he actually hadn't recognized at first because he was so disheveled. Still, he was alive. And that was more than he could say he knew for half of his friends and family.

He saw the moment the surprise wore off of Takagi and she geared up to tear him a new one but Kohta reacted first, rushing to greet their friend first.

"Vega! You're alright!" Kohta disregarded the smell and clasped his hand, shaking his hand and body vigorously.

"I'm glad you're alright Thomas," Hisashi said, coming up to their friend as well.

Takagi, meanwhile, stood by in confusion. "Both of you know this guy?"

"Yeah, I told him how to get here." Hisashi backed away after saying hi, directing his attention to Takagi as he answered.

"Where is everyone else?" Thomas asked, patting down his pockets as he did so, grimacing when he touched the front of his jacket. "And the restroom?"

"The girls are asleep in one of the rooms and Takashi went to one of the other rooms to check for more stuff. The bathroom's over there," Hisashi pointed to a room to the right of them.

"Thanks," he went off, presumably to get clean.

Takagi took one look at Kohta and left in a huff, deigning to not waste her time arguing.

Kohta sat down hard, roughly going over the weapons. Hisashi sighed, he hoped they could settled things tomorrow, as it was now, they were still wound up from today's events. Which was entirely understandable but frustrating all the same.

o0o

[1st]

The bath had felt like I was about to ascend to a higher plain of existince. It was that good. That was, of course, due to the rough day I'd spent running basically across the whole town. I was extremely grateful I'd made it in time though, half a minute later and we'd have been a child and dog short.

Thinking back on when I saw her, it was weird. I'd never seen a child, or any person really, with eyes that big before; like she was made for being the super cute kid that melted people's hearts, which I suppose she was. Hopefully—knock on wood—things would be smooth-ish sailing from here.

Now I was leaning on the washing machine in a new change of clothes, having already thrown in my stuff to wash, I'd already taken the plethora of things out of my pockets. All 3 gajillion of them. I'd closed my eyes to rest them for a bit, planning on waiting here until my stuff was done so I could immediately throw it into the dryer.

"Oh," I heard a faint voice come from the door. I opened my eyes and tried not to snort. In the doorway was Saeko, wearing that stupid apron thong thing. I was slightly surprised that I wasn't all that embarrassed but supposed it made some kind of sense. The difference between now and earlier with Shizuka was that Saeko was at least covered and that she looked as if she'd stepped out of some fetish wear catalog or something. That paired with the fact that I hadn't seen her in anything other than track wear the whole time I'd known her made it hard not to laugh. It was the difference between an almost stranger and a friend, I suppose.

I closed my eyes again anyways, best to be nice. "Greetings."

She didn't say anything at first, just standing there I think. "Hello, it's good to see you again." I just hummed in agreement.

"What are you doing?" I heard her coming closer, her feet padding on the floor. "You can open your eyes," that last part was said with some mirth in her voice.

"Waiting for my clothes to finish washing so I can get some sleep. Yourself?" I went through routine, treating this like any other meeting.

"I am waiting for my clothes to dry." She returned simply, letting silence settle between us. I'd never realized that the silence had been fine because we were both running, now it just felt weird. To me at least.

I felt the rumbling behind me stop, stopping me from needing to say anything. I started to pull my stuff out before seeing that Saeko's stuff wasn't done drying. Well, guess I'd have to wait a few more minutes, that was too bad, I really wanted the sweet embrace of sleep to take me.

A few more minutes passed without either of saying anything. Just waiting for her stuff to ding or whatever the machine did when it was done.

"I hope the way I am dressed isn't what is causing you to feel uncomfortable." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, actually laughing a bit when I got what she said.

"Actually, I was trying not to laugh when I saw it,"

"Really? Why is that?" She looked me over, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, I've only ever seen you wearing a track suit, you know? So, like," I stopped, moving my jaw around a bit as I tried to remember how I thought of it earlier. "It's like, if you saw me wearing one of those doofy looking old time European frills or something you'd wanna laugh too right?"

This time it was her turn to hold back laughter. Raising her hand as she failed to do so. "Right?" I said, taking that as evidence.

"Do I really look that strange?" She looked herself over.

"No you look fine, it's the outfit," I waved off her question, the dryer buzzing as it suddenly finished. Saeko opened it and felt her clothes, or their clothes, since that many certainly didn't belong to only her, nodding when she was satisfied with the level of dryness. I nodded at her thankfully, putting my stuff in and starting the machine up. I stretched, muscles and bones popping as I did so.

"I'm off," I started heading out, anticipating laying down to sleep.

"Rest well," Saeko called back, lugging her stuff over to whichever room she was in.

"Night." I flopped onto the couch once I got there, trying not to groan from the relief I felt at resting. Hisashi told me we'd be taking off before dawn, so I was gonna enjoy this while I could.

o0o

Most of us were sitting in the Humvee, the sun still not yet up.

"That should be everything," Hisashi wiped his hands off, looking over to the rest of us.

"Now it is," Kohta stepped out, wearing a surplus of weapons and weaponstuffs. Everyone, the dog included, stared in amusement and a bit of confusion.

"Ready to go General?" I asked, trying to draw a nice reaction out.

Kohta's grin almost split his face, "Damn straight, Cadet!"

"Cadet? Why am I a Cadet, I ran through town by myself, I should at least be like a Captain or something." Everyone's attention turned to me as I said that, causing me to scrunch up again. "Was it something I said?"

"Holy shit," Takashi said, "the whole town?" Oh.

"Not the whole town, just like half of it, I didn't really fight much either." Everyone seemed to take that news better.

As the group settled into their seats, Alice came up to me. "Mister?" I raised a brow, waiting for her to continue. "Why are you glowing?" Again, everyone was looking at me.

"What?" I asked. Bewildered.

"Your eyes are glowing." I pulled out my phone and stared at the darkened screen. Indeed, there was a very faint luminescence to them.

"What?" I asked again, not any clearer on what was going on.

"The hell?"

"Huh?"

"Oh my,"

"Eh?"

Well. At least I wasn't alone in this.

Then it hit me. That super chuuni dream I had last month. Was that a prophecy or something? Was I really a psychic? Why now?

I just closed my eyes and leaned down. I hadn't really noticed since I was busy trying not to die, but it had been easier to see when it was dark.

"I don't know," I muttered from between my legs. I didn't want to look anyone face to face right now.

I think I'd just try to get more sleep. That sounded nice.

I looked up and saw the sun barely peaking over the horizon. Well, we'd made it through one day. Now all that was left was making sure we can keep doing that forever.

Easy- "Ow."

The Humvee jumped as Shizuka ran over a corpse, making everyone float out of their seats for a brief moment.

I guess that's what I got for tempting fate like that. I'll just take that nap then.

o0oo0oo0o

So, the time has come. Three and a half months later and here we are.

Originally, this is where I was planning on ending the story as I actually started this because I had just finished reading HOTD through and wondered why no one wrote a fic where the protagonist did some kind of crazy shenanigans. When I got home I sat down and started typing out the first chapter without any kind of plan. It was going to be closer to the Deleted Scene, where the protagonist (not an SI at the time) was overpowered and just tore through legions of 'em. But I thought that wouldn't be as much fun to write or read so I went with this instead.

Anyways, I'm considering this the End of Season One, so to speak. The next chapter to come out will have a new naming scheme as well since it would be a lot of Spring for awhile to come. But yeah.

Also, more importantly, I never intended to write Saeko/Thomas, going back over the chapters, I saw it looked like SI-kun was just incredibly dense (which I suppose is true) and that Saeko was mooning over him or something. Not the case, it was just intended to be a good friendship.

I'm gonna be writing a Worm one-shot so if any of you guys know some Worm resources for writing or whatever I ask that you tell me.

Finally, this chapter will push the story to 50K, which is by far, the longest story I've ever written in my life. It feels super good. So yeah, tell me your thoughts, questions, concerns, about the chapter, the story as a whole, all that stuff.


	10. Interlude: Kanjo Group

N

{Kazu}

Kazu didn't know what to think exactly about Morita. They'd been in different classes but had known of each other regardless. The blond had seemed more concerned with having fun or talking to cute girls, something which Kazu had become very aware of when he'd told him about his goal to find his friend Sachiko. She'd been one of two people he started worrying about when the zombies came, the other being Toru, Okada's younger cousin. What he'd found had been depressing. At least he hadn't had to kill him.

He paused, still having trouble wrapping his head around everything that had happened. Okada. He'd been laughing with him without much to worry about less than 12 hours ago, now he'd trade just about anything to go back and forget all this.

They'd made it this far, but with every passing hour, Kazu found his body getting tenser as he imagined what could go wrong. Getting to Sachiko's they could find everyone that lived there being monsters that wanted for nothing but flesh. They could get swarmed on the way, dying just short of her house, last thoughts focused on the excruciating pain that would no doubt follow being torn into or the crushing regret of being so close. Theycould-

"Hey," Kazu snapped his attention towards Morita, feeling the sweat that had begun to break out stream down his face.

"Mhs?" Whatever he'd meant to say came out a strangled mess in the face of his nervousness.

"Ease up, you look stiffer than that street sign dude," Morita said, nodding to the sign outside as Kazu just fixed him with a look of disbelief and some envy.

"How can you be calm? There are zombies. Zombies!" His breath was starting to get shorter, picking up notes of hysteria.

He soon found a hand covering his mouth, a strained look on Morita's face betraying his feelings. "Quiet down, you're gonna get us killed." He fell back into his seat when he was sure Kazu wasn't about to get them killed, running his hand through his hair. "I'm not feeling too good either, I just don't wanna die 'cause I flipped my shit." He didn't look too pleased with the image that brought to mind. "Just, try not to have a heart attack. We can't reach your friend unless you're alive."

Kazu looked down, realizing the validity of that statement. It was hard. The courage he'd found as he'd been trying to protect Marikawa-sensei seemed to only come when they were actually in the midst of zombies, and even then, Kazu sometimes found himself being reminded of their previous humanity; it had almost gotten him killed seven times already. Afterwards, it would drain out of him and leave him a nervous wreck, or close enough to not really matter.

"What if we're the only ones left?" Kazu muttered, looking down at the floor and gripping his weapon, a simple, yet durable, golf club they'd found lying around the streets.

"We aren't, there was that screaming nutjob."

Kazu grimaced, "Going by the stuff he was saying, I wouldn't expect him to last long."

Morita drew back upon hearing that, not expecting that response. He soon regained his footing and found a suitable reply, "if a guy like that survived that far then some normal people had to make it too, right?" He seemed to settle on an answer himself, nodding his head. "Of course, I'm sure all the really tough people are out there, we just have to hope one of them finds us." Despite the rough patch at the end, the words seemed to lift Kazu up a bit. He took a shaky breath and found something to prop up his resolve.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right, if someone like me made it out, I'm sure others did too," Kazu stood up, wanting to get going while he was feeling better. Morita stood as well, glad his new companion wasn't so gloomy now.

Kazu handed the bottle he'd been drinking from back to Morita, who just put it in his pack. Morita grinned and clapped his schoolmate on the back, going past him to exit first.

"How long do you think we've got until we reach her place?" Kazu started to think, not sure about the exact distance from where they were.

"An hour? Maybe two?" Morita looked outside, happy to still see daylight.

"Cool." He adjusted the straps of his backpack, looking around for any signs of zombies. Seeing none he took another deep breath and signaled to Kazu. They set back out, keeping an eye out for anything, zombies or otherwise, that would cause them problems. Seeing as there wasn't much room for good to happen at the moment, they were hoping to avoid any surprises.

o0o

{Morita}

Morita stood inside Sachiko's house, gaping as he slowly moved about to gaze upon the large building. _What's up with my friends being rich?_ He honestly wondered if he was just lucky, or maybe unlucky depending on how this affected his survival.

After getting his fill of gawking, he turned to look at another group of people that Kazu's friend had helped.

Morita hadn't caught their name, but they looked a bit uncomfortable around him, though he couldn't remember doing anything since they'd arrived, and he didn't think Kazu was the type to do anything either.

Looking around, Morita couldn't see Kazu or his friend anywhere. _Guess I'll just wait for them to come back._

o0o

When Kazu came back, Morita saw he seemed much calmer than before, he was even smiling. Next to him was a pale girl, who he guessed was Sachiko.

"Sorry about leaving you behind Morita-san," Kazu looked a bit sheepish, rubbing his head and averting his eyes.

Morita just shrugged his shoulders, an easy-going smile on his face. "No hard feelings here." Kazu looked at him and smiled in thanks, his shoulders loosening up a bit. As the two of them reached Morita, Sachiko spoke up, trying to get everyone in the room's attention.

"Pardon me, but I would like to hear how the both of you got here. Ah, but you don't have to force yourself if it's too painful."

Morita wasn't really sure what the point was but figured it couldn't really hurt. At least his and Kazu's story wouldn't. He started to think about how he would begin his story, looking to see if Kazu was waiting for him to go first, a bit surprised that wasn't the case. "Well, everything had seemed normal enough, I was just helping our nurse…"

o0o

Morita finished his account of things, his confusion rising as he saw that some of the others were openly avoiding looking at him now. Sachiko looked between Morita and the other group, honestly worried as to how things were going if they were already having trouble communicating.

"Um, like I said, I was just curious, you don't have to-"

"No, it's no problem, I'll tell you," A man best and most simply described as rugged spoke up, looking among his family to make sure they were okay with it. No one spoke so he decided to go ahead. "I'm sorry we haven't really talked to anyone, we were-" he pauses as he mulls over the phrasing, "-we lost someone." The others continued to be silent, some of them seemed to be holding back tears. "I'm Kouno Saburo," he moved his arm to point at those near him, introducing them individually. When he was done he bowed, something which the others followed, albeit more subdued, ending the bow with a 'nice to meet you.'

"For us, this started yesterday. My father called everyone up, telling us he felt something ominous in his gut. This, along with some other things left us wary and we'd never really known his instincts to be wrong, so we checked to make sure everyone was okay. Nothing had come up at the time, so we loosened our guards." His face tensed up and he clenched his fist before he continued on, "But earlier today my brother, Aoi, went to my parent's house, leaking blood on the floor, he'd started telling them about some crazy guy that he'd tried calming down, only to get his fingers ripped off. He'd been on the way to my parent's house and decided that was as good a place as any to cool his heels as he waited for someone to take him to the doctor's or the hospital."

Saburo and the rest of his family apparently couldn't hold it in anymore as they began crying, though Saburo's was rather subdued as he attempted to power on through his story.

"Hardly an hour had passed before my brother started displaying symptoms, in that time he'd made it apparent he knew just what had bitten him and he wished for me to take care of him if he did indeed turn. He did, but no one was hurt thankfully, and I-" He choked up once more, "I did what he asked. I killed him." Saburo fell apart at this point, turning to his family and hiding his face from the others. In his place came who Morita assumed was his father, a man with a face that spoke of many days smiling and caring for others. He smiled, albeit softly, at his son for having the strength of will to speak up for his family when they could not.

"After my son passed, we began to head for my brother's house, he lives outside of the city, in the sticks, and we figured there would be little trouble. A bunch of those, monsters, appeared before we even got to the outskirts and we were forced along a different path, eventually ending up here, surrounded. Our only hope was that there was someone inside alive and willing to accept us in." His smile returned and he deeply bowed to Sachiko, "For that, this old man humbly thanks you, for saving his family."

"Please, sit up, I only did as I was raised to," Sachiko seemed a bit uncomfortable with the praise, seeking to bring the man up from his position on the floor.

"So what's your deal?" Once everyone had settled into relative quiet Morita found himself wondering about how Kazu's friend had found herself alone in her house and asked her.

"I'm not actually alone. My brother, Kei, and our butler, Yamaoka, are off poking about the area. As for my story, there's not much to it, I woke up today to some rather loud noises and looked outside, only to see those outside eating each other," Morita was impressed with how calmly she was telling her story until he looked a bit lower and found her hands on her lap, the knuckles white from how tightly she was clenching them. It was nonetheless impressive that she could at least appear calm.

"I must admit, I panicked at the sight. Thankfully, Yamaoka was there to soothe me and bring me up to speed. There were people attacking each other, my father had been called and convinced and my brother was taking stock of all the disaster supplies we had. We talked things out and went about trying to prepare. A few hours after that the Kouno's arrived, then you," She said this to Kazu, smiling as she did. Morita was jealous a beautiful lady like her was paying attention to his friend but knew it made sense.

"What now?" He asked, seeing the sentiment being shared among Kazu and one of the Kouno's.

Sachiko raised a finger to her lips, taking up a classic thinking pose. "I suppose we could wait until my brother and Yamaoka get back before discussing things further."

Everyone agreed, separating naturally into groups so they could talk amongst themselves.

o0o

{The Mansion Group}

It was already well past 10 when Kei and Yamaoka came back, the older one politely announcing their return while the young man muttered his greeting.

"Welcome home." Sachiko returned, glancing between the two hopefully, waiting for any good news. Yamaoka looked to Kei, waiting for him to speak first. Kei looked up from his musings, looking around the room. "Is this everyone?"

"No, there are a few in the restroom."

"Please bring them over here, I would like to discuss some things before the night is out." He found somewhere to sit and resumed thinking. Sachiko left to tell the others and Yamaoka left for the kitchen to get drinks ready.

A few minutes passed before everyone was gathered, Saburo and his wife having finished what they were doing. Kei waited until they were in their seats and introductions were made before talking. "I'm sorry if you were busy, but I thought it imperative that we talk through some details before settling in, like the general state of things or what role everyone will have for the time being. However, if you wish to wait until the morning comes, then I am willing to wait." Saburo looked as if he didn't appreciate Kei's wording.

"'You're willing to wait? You say that as if you're in charge." Whether that statement was meant to be aggressive or not was unknown to all but Saburo.

Kei nodded. "I am."

"You didn't clear that with anyone, did you?" Now, the aggression was clearly intended, and while most of the people in the room started to tense up, Kei was calm, relaxed, even.

"I did not, it was my father's wish. This is my house and my family, they knew things were going to be this way." His reply was clipped. As if no more needed to be said.

Saburo was visibly frowning now, actively holding himself from stepping into the kid's personal space to intimidate him. "Does anyone else get a say in this?"

Kei remained calm, firmly rooted in place. "No. As I said, this is my house and my responsibility."

Saburo let himself step forward now, although the threat wasn't as effective with him looking up at Kei. "A child shouldn't be leading, not in these circumstances."

Kei's demeanor dropped a bit, the only physical change being the shift of his eyes to Saburo. "Who else would be stepping forth for the role? Your parents? They have not been arguing on their own behalf, and anyone unwilling to step forward at this point does not deserve to take charge. You or your wife then perhaps? There's hardly any difference in our ages, so surely that's not it. Besides that, do you really think a few years of life as you've led it would prepare you for a role such as this? That any amount would?" Kei waited for Saburo to counter his claims, continuing when no rebuttal was forthcoming.

"I do not mean to be so forceful, but I have been working to take up our father's position for several years now, leading is something I am quite used to." Even as he eased up on the authoritativeness of his tone, he saw the family warily looking at him, quite far removed from comfortable or trusting.

"I am doing this for me and my family, as you are for yours. I'm not asking for absolute loyalty, merely everyone's cooperation." Kei let the silence settle, waiting for everyone to come to their conclusions before speaking again. Kazu and Morita needed no convincing. From the start, Kazu was planning on staying with Sachiko, as that had been all he'd really had left that he knew of. Morita had no desire to leave since the only people he knew were halfway across town and traveling at this hour sounded like a sure-fire way to get chomped.

The Kouno's, while conflicted and of differing opinions, eventually decided to stay as well. Satoru believed in Kei and his wife trusted her husband's instincts. Saburo would follow his parents and Mamiko would follow him. Akane just wanted the fighting to stop and Suzume saw the intelligence and charisma that Kei had.

o0o

{Kei}

When everyone made clear their intention, Kei sought to move on. "Introductions have been made but I would like to hear more about everyone, what your jobs, hobbies or talents were, as they will help in settling who will be taking what role."

"I had a job in construction, prepping sites, moving things around, that kind of stuff. No hobbies really, other than relaxing with my family when I was free." Saburo went first, he scratched his face as he thought over any kind of particular past-times he had, his numerous muscles shifting as he did so. It was clear to Kei what kind of role he would take, even before he'd spoken up. Nonetheless, it was good to have confirmation.

"I was aiming for a degree in law, so you can imagine I didn't have much time to do anything other than study." Suzume's response was short but enough to tell Kei what he needed to know.

"My wife and I ran a store, when we weren't busy with that, we spent time with our children or relaxing outside." They could be used for resource and task management, and judging by how he saw Satoru's family follow him when it came time to decide, he was most likely used as emotional support as well.

Things went in much the same fashion for the next hour or so, with everyone save for Kei's family talking about themselves and bringing up whatever details they thought would help.

Eventually, the roles were settled upon. Morita and Saburo would be the vanguard, the ones going out and about to take care of problems that had a simple five-fingered solution. Kazu and Akane would handle everyone's health, as both had ample experience in treating people's injuries.

Suzume and Sachiko would act as advisors, attempting to cover up for subjects that Kei was lacking in or making decisions if he was indisposed.

Satoru and Ayame would take care of inventory and the like, having literal decades of experience doing so.

Which left Saburo's wife, Mamiko. She would take care of the children, parts of the house in use, and preparing meals.

He and Yamaoka would fill in for whatever tasks were needed, trying to make sure everything was nicely filled out, although they had responsibilities they favored above the others.

All said and done, Kei was grateful his sister had taken in those that had sought aid. Doing so had been dangerous, no doubt, as well as put more of a strain on what they had to offer, but that didn't change the fact that more hands available meant they could do more, something that would be vital to long-term survival. Though that would all be determined by who chose to stay after he told them the news.

Kei breathed in deeply once everyone had accepted their roles, glad to have that over and done with. "It is already rather late as is. I wished to discuss more but that can wait until tomorrow." He saw that that didn't sit well with Kazu and Suzume. "Is something the matter?"

Surprisingly, Kazu was the one that spoke. Even if he'd known the boy for all of 3-5 hours, he could tell from the very beginning that he wasn't one to speak up often. "I'm not sure if I can sleep without knowing everything I possibly can about what's going on." Suzume nodded, sharing most of the sentiment.

"The gist of it is that despite how things are looking, there is hope in this situation. I know you would like to hear more but that will have to do, for now, the both of us are filthy and I would like some rest before I collapse in a pile a filth." He politely gestured to Yamaoka, who excused himself upon being acknowledged to clean himself up.

Kazu relaxed a bit upon hearing that there would be good news while Suzume still seemed discontent, even if she nonetheless relented for the moment.

As Kei rose, slowly stretching again before setting off, he felt his body stiffen up. Regardless of how in shape he was, the day had taken its toll. Once he was clean, he hoped he could stay awake long enough to properly get into bed.

o0o

{Morita}  
After Sachiko's brother had left, everyone gradually separated again, this time in slightly higher spirits. His good mood was dampened by the fact that he still felt the Kouno's were mostly ignoring him, although now he was relatively sure that it was not out of spite.

Morita sighed heavily, rubbing his face. The group was kinda like a bunch of grapes or something, loosely connected, but still together. Some parts sweeter than the others, hopefully, none of them had seeds though, Morita always hated finding those in his grapes, he figured Kazu or Sachiko's brother were seeded grapes, they seemed like the type to-." Morita slapped himself awake. He must've been exhausted if his mind had drifted like that.

He supposed it made sense. He'd been up for at least 16 hours and he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, nor did he catch that nap he'd intended on during school.

The thought of school made Morita feel as if something important was missing, or that he should be worried.

Morita's eyes widened. School. Takashi and the others. He'd forgotten about them. Again. He quickly pulled his phone out and was relieved to see that it was still alive. He got ready to contact Takashi or Thomas but stopped. What if they were surrounded right now? What if they hadn't shut their sound off? What if calling them up now got them killed?

Now that he wasn't immediately in danger of dying, he found it easier to start working up some panic.

 _What if I'm the only one left?_

He was brought out of his thoughts by a sharp pain. He'd been clenching his hand hard enough to start piercing skin and his phone was creaking in his other hand from the pressure. Morita took a deep breath and blew it out, repeating the process when he found it wasn't enough. A few minutes had passed by the time he'd calmed down.

He would believe in his friends. They were the closest thing he had to family. They couldn't be dead.

"Don't die on me you bastards, who else am I gonna fuck around with?"

o0oo0oo0o

And that's a wrap!

Now I know I'm on my way to becoming a great author. My first hiatus, even if it was only 3 months.

Honestly, most of it was just laziness, most of the times I didn't know what to write I would just shrug and stop there for the time being, other times the same part I was stuck on would just loop over and over in my head and I would do the same thing. But once I got going I tore through this so I'm pretty happy with that.

On the chapter, I wanted to include this in order to let people know what was going on with some of the other characters I'd thrown in. Originally, I'd wanted to try and squeeze in a cameo of Tom Brody from Brian Boru's _Land of the Dead_ but decided against it since I thought it would be rude to do so without asking and getting past that I didn't think it right to have him without his gang of buff bois. (Thank you for updating, by the way, I derive great pleasure from how uncomfortable Tom gets with Saeko's advances).

But uh, yeah, let me know how the chapter was since I'm not really too sure about the quality. Like, I feel like it's good but not at the same time, you know?

Pairings: Everyone else is pretty much the same but I'm not sure if I wanna have [SI/Keikaku/Saeko]. Something just feels off about pairing myself with a fictional character. Not really scummy or anything just, off.


	11. Chapter 10:Takagi Manor (1)

X

[1st]

When I opened my eyes, there lay a familiar sight albeit one that I hadn't expected to ever see again. Home, or one of them at least.

I looked around the house, wondering why here of all places. I was upstairs, for one thing. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept upstairs. The house was a lot quieter. How early was it? I don't ever remember being the first person awake. Unless this was a weekend? I looked around for a calendar. It was April 14th, 2010. I froze. April 14? 2010? I checked again, the calendar was for the year 2010, the head said April and the x's on the sheet showed that it was indeed the 14th. I stared at the sheet for some unknown amount of time, only taking myself away from it to look out the window for signs of zombies.

There was junk littering the street, but more worryingly, there were zombies; not a lot since I lived in a suburb, but still way too many for me to be comfortable with in this body. It was bad enough having to do it with preparation, this was a disaster.

I'd thought about how I would fare against the undead only a few months ago, having pushed those thoughts aside in favor of getting stuff ready.

Now. Now I couldn't push it aside. I had to see for myself what was going on with me and my family on the other side of the world. And I couldn't do a thing about it.

"Timothy?" I quickly turned to whoever said that. I hadn't heard my name in months. My throat went dry. There was my brother, sitting up, rubbing his eyes. He was so small. So thin.

So helpless.

So was I.

I didn't know what to say.

"Hello," I didn't recognize my voice but I was in 5th grade and my voice had barely begun getting deeper. We stared at each other for a minute or so until he just rolled over and went back to bed.

I blinked a bit. What was with that reaction? I thought he'd be a little more wary. You know, the whole zombie thing? Did he forget? Was he in denial? Had I just been seeing things? I glanced back at the window, seeing a biter just shuffling about. No, I wasn't seeing things. I just pursed my lips and started walking downstairs, freezing when I heard the floorboards creak. I'd forgotten about how noisy this house was. I tried to remember what spots were quiet and made my way back to the window, none of the zombies were coming our way. That was good. That meant there was more noise outside, which hopefully meant more survivors.

I tried to go downstairs again, looking over the stains on the carpet on the way down. Seeing this house again was surreal, even if it'd only been a few years since we moved.

When I got downstairs, the possibility or hope really that this was just a dream occurred to me before I brushed it aside, weirder things had happened than briefly experiencing things as a younger me. I think. They were around the same level at least.

The windows were boarded up, the weaker parts of the house had furniture pushed in front of them. There was a noise from the door and I tensed up, feeling a bit nauseous when I saw it start to open.

I tried to head to the kitchen to get a knife but my body was unresponsive. The door opened and my father stepped inside, looking exhausted.

My body ran forward without my input, hugging him as he closed the door. "Dad!" I could smell the sweat and grime on him, how long had he been outside?

"Hey champ, what are you doing up?" He sounded so tired.

"I don't know!" I just beamed at him, he felt so tall now, it was kind of nostalgic.

I heard the door close, followed by a heavy sigh and saw my eldest brother, Ian. He was already in high school and built like a small tank. He walked past us and sat on the couch, sinking into it.

Dad rubbed my shoulder and walked to the kitchen. "Do you want some breakfast?" I cheered and saw Dad smile as he went into the kitchen to get me something.

I started to walk forward-

o0o

And spilled forward onto the floor of the Humvee, jolting awake at the feeling of slamming onto the floor.

When I got up, everyone was looking at me. Not surprising, really, considering I'd just flung myself forward.

Saeko was the first to move forward, "are you alright?"

"Dream," I said, my face heating up a bit.

"What was it about?"

"Home. My family." I replied, thinking back on it. I couldn't recall the last time I had such a vivid dream. I wasn't even sure if therewasa time before.

"We were just trying to make plans to check on our families, if you let us know where to go then I'm sure we could check on yours too," Rei suggested, not seeing the looks on Hisashi or Takashi's faces.

"My family's in America," I said. Her eyes widened considerably before shifting away from me.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that." Everyone looked a bit uncomfortable, save for Shizuka who's face I couldn't see and Kohta and Alice who were on top of the Humvee and singing.

"'s alright," She hadn't known, and besides that, I'd already thought plenty about the fact I wouldn't be able to see them again, not in person at least. I'd even kinda sorta come to terms with it.

She looked ready to say something but Hisashi put a hand on her shoulder. When she looked back, it seemed like they had a silent conversation somehow and she stopped.

Hisashi picked up the slack in the conversation before it could awkward. "We're making our way across the river in order to reach Takagi's house, after landing we'll have a quick stretch and then Marikawa-sensei is going to get the Humvee up there. Somehow." He added the last part with a touch of confusion and curiosity.

Shortly after, we hit land and Shizuka told everyone to get out. I went to the top where Alice was to try and lift her mood some more and show off a bit. "Hey," I called over to where she and Kohta were, drawing both their attention. She seemed to be wiggling about as Kohta started handing her to Takashi. "Wanna go up?" I didn't really know how else to put it and figured simply was best. The three looked confused and I tried to elaborate. "You know. Like. Fuwahhh." I spread my arms as I said that, getting a bit flushed as they continued staring. Alice wriggled out of Kohta's grip and came over, still not getting it but wanting to see what I meant. When she came over I scooped her up and made my way to the side opposite where we'd be leaving, Takashi and Kohta's eyes following the whole time. My stomach twisted as I realized just how bad an idea this was.Sure, pull attention to yourself, showing off always ends well. Especially in a setting like this.Last time I'd been carrying Alice we'd been a bit too preoccupied with trying to get to safety and having to go to the restroom but now she could enjoy the feeling of being high up completely.

I took a deep a breath and ran for the edge, trying to jump as high as possible once reaching the end and as I'd spent the last six-plus months training my body, that was quite high. It had taken a bit getting used to, to be honest. Mostly due to the fact that as far as I was aware, before coming here the highest I could go was somewhere around two feet. Now it was upwards of seven. That added to the fact that jumps had more hang time here than before meant I could get quite a bit of distance between jumps.

Everyone, including those that had gotten out, watched or at least caught sight of me sailing through the air with Alice in my arms, screaming in glee (I hoped) the whole way, eventually landing next to the stairs leading up to the street.

"That was amazing, mister! Again! Let's go again!" Alice hopped about in my arms, waving her arms around and almost smacking me in the face. I relaxed a bit knowing that putting myself out there hadn't been for naught. Good as everything was going, there was nothing to say she couldn't have a bit more to enjoy now that most if not all of society had gone kaput.

I put her down, smiling a bit. "Maybe later, right now I've gotta check something." Takashi and Kohta were making their way towards us but I went ahead without them. Even if I didn't remember this, that also meant there wouldn't be any zombies nearby, or at least not enough to cause them a problem. Sure enough, when I got up, there weren't any nearby. Cool.

"Nothin' here," I called back, waiting for them to catch up. Takashi and Kohta waved to Shizuka, who just revved the engine and floored the gas. I couldn't see Takashi or Kohta's expression as they peeled off to the side in order to avoid being run over but I would hazard a guess and say terrified; especially if their yelps were anything to go by. I was already off to the side and just watched as Shizuka blasted up the side of the embankment. Flinching from the noisiness of the vehicle as it slammed down near me.

Hisashi and the girls followed behind, a touch bewildered but definitely calmer than the other two. "That was...impressive Marikawa-sensei." Hisashi didn't seem like he knew what else to say.

"Holy fuck, that damn near took my head off!" Takagi swatted Takashi for saying such a thing near Alice and Hisashi laughed a bit.

"Come on guys, we should get going. Takagi's house isn't too far right?" Hisashi looked to her for confirmation and she nodded, though she did tense up a bit at the thought of home.

Everyone piled up into the Humvee save for Hisashi and Rei, who got on top. Once inside I pulled a little book out of one of my pockets and started to read it.

In order to make sure I didn't forget anything I deemed important, I'd written everything down sometime after realizing where I was. After even more time had passed, I'd discovered I could read more than just English and Japanese, though it took a bit more concentration and the handwriting still had to be discernable. I'd used this to translate everything into a few different languages in the hopes that if someone read it, I wouldn't have to explain myself. I opened the book to where I'd left off, looking over the lines written in...Greek, I think, and narrowing my eyes to read it. Takashi and Rei fell off and there was a short scuffle before everyone was rescued by Takagi's mom. That fight was where the boob bullet time thing happened if memory served. After that, we would be lead to their house and other stuff would happen, ending with Shido showing and wrecking things with his party bus. I smiled to myself at that thought. The only people who would be able to stomach him were probably dead, not to mention the sleazebag himself.Wonder if anyone'll find his body now.I shrugged, good riddance either way I suppose.God, there's so much happening soon,I was skimming through the pages to get an idea of how much was left. Even with that being the case, I hadn't gotten everyone killed yet so there was that.

"Vega-san?" I turned to Saeko, thankfully noting that no one else was looking my way. Good, so I hadn't said any of that out loud or been chuckling ominously to myself.

"Hm?" Had I done something to just attract her attention then?

"You were smiling quite a bit, I was wondering if you'd read something funny."

I had to think about the right way to word this. "Nah, nothing funny, I was just trying to read this. I'm pretty happy with how well it's going." I'd gotten better with skirting the truth over the months. At least, I liked to think I was getting better.

"Can I see? I would like to know how well I can follow along with a native English speaker." She started to lean a bit to get a peek and I turned the book over to her since I knew she wouldn't be able to read anything.

"It's not, this is Greek."

"Greek? Is that your second language or something?" Takashi asked, he and Kohta were right next to me, so it wasn't all too surprising they'd heard.

"No, it's-" I paused as we hit some more zombies. This was getting a little too plentiful to be comfortable with. "Hold on a sec," I walked over to where Rei and Hisashi were, popping out of the hole leading to the top.

"You guys should come down, there's no telling when you could get thrown off and you don't need me to tell you how bad that would be in this situation." They nodded and came back down, finding a place to sit before they began talking again, though I noticed that Takashi seemed a bit put off by how happy they were while he was excluded. I started thinking about whether I should try to help them with that problem when Saeko shouted something and the vehicle swerved before slamming against something, though it didn't stop.

"Stop! Why won't it stop?!" The frustration in Shizuka's voice was understandable, though I ignored it in favor of heading for the door and tearing it open to jump out of the vehicle. Since this is when we started getting swarmed, it would be best to start damage control before the cavalry got here.

I rolled as I got out, pulling my knives out and briefly landing in a pose that would have been embarrassing if not for the situation.

Here's hoping that they got here in time.

o0o

[3rd]{Saeko}

"The tires are locked! Let go of the breaks and hit the gas just a bit!"

Saeko thought she saw Thomas jump but didn't have time to confirm as Shizuka took Kohta's advice and the Humvee careened soon after. When she regained her balance she saw the door open. He must've jumped as soon as he heard trouble. While that may have sounded cowardly, Saeko was sure Thomas wasn't the type to do that to his friends. She followed out soon after and saw-.

A massacre.

Skilled as she was, Saeko could say with certainty that this was far from elegant, from efficiency and from stylish.

But she would never say it wasn't effective or beautiful in its own way.

The scene that greeted her was of death. Of those powerless to stop it.

Thomas was flitting about, slaying Them by groups of two or three as they hadn't had the opportunity to group up after Shizuka had ripped through Their ranks.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, a small grin slid onto Saeko's face, then she rushed in.

o0o

{Kohta}

Kohta had expected to storm out and swing out any of his little babies that had recently come into his possession, filling them with bullets as him and his friends fought for their lives. But when he got to the door, he didn't really think he'd be needed, at least not yet.

He'd already seen Saeko fight, even if it was only briefly, back at school as well as when they arrived at Shizuka's friend's house, so he'd known what to expect, even if it was still impressive. Everything he'd seen had made sense, most of it looked like kendo taken to a more lethal level and what didn't could be explained as her learning it outside of school. Which wasn't to say it wasn't impressive, it still left him in awe at how elegant you could make killing people look.

What he hadn't expected was just how brutal Thomas could be. While he wasn't as good as Saeko, that wasn't to say he wasn't contributing his fair share of bodies. He casually stepped forward, foot caving in its knee, its face landing on the knife in his left hand, though it seemed to last only an instant as his hand flew forward unimpeded by the person falling on it as it went straight for the next one. His right hand had gone behind him to backhand another one in the face, its skull caving in due to the force of his knuckles. Soon after he was sprinting to the next small group, making short work of them as well. When a larger group started to come near, Kohta brought the Armalite up to cover and got two shots off before Thomas grabbed one of the corpses he'd just shot and threw it into the others. Kohta watched as he took small quick steps to step on those that fell and punched those that were still falling, rushing off at a low tilt when he was done.

At one point he got surrounded, but ran up a wall and pushed away, leaving them for Kohta to pick off and think that maybe it had been on purpose.

At another he bowled through one of Them on his way to a group, ripping its head off and chucking it at another as it fell.

Kohta couldn't think of a way to describe other than a step above a street brawl. Meanwhile, Saeko was killing almost twice as many with much smoother strokes, looking for all the world as if she was just sparring with a particularly clumsy underclassman.

That wasn't to say that everything was under control. Even with almost everyone joining the fight, Kohta was still finding himself shooting more and more. He was still confident they would pull through but wasn't sure of how long it would take nor if anyone would get bitten during that time as the only person that was sufficiently covered was Thomas.

"Get down!"

Reloading had busied his hands and kept his head mostly out of the way but Kohta still didn't have enough time to process and follow the orders before he saw Them being pushed away by a lot of water.

They were quickly escorted away from the fight and made aware that they were safe. Kohta sagged to the floor with Alice in his arms, both of them smiling and tearing up as the relief washed over them, with everyone celebrating the same thing in different ways.

Hisashi walked over with Rei, the two holding hands as they did. "Thank you for helping us, I'm not sure how we can repay you but-." The figure he was talking to raised their hand and waved him off, pulling their helmet off as they did.

"No need for payback. I just wanted to help my daughter and her friends."

o0o

[1st]

No one had asked how old I was or if I'd gone to college. When I told them I was a working adult with a job, I could instantly tell that I was being treated with more respect than the rest of the group, save Shizuka. Even if had only been a few hours I could tell Hisashi and Takagi were tired of being treated that way. The latter more so.

Since arriving and settling in, I'd gone around and started checking up on everyone else. Rei and Hisashi were walking around the area last I checked, with Takashi and Kohta broing it up elsewhere. Takagi was sulking by ordering people around with more venom and brattiness, Alice was with Shizuka playing around with Tamotsu (who they'd kept calling Zeke, though I had told them his real name) and I'd made a promise to Alice that we could 'go up' when I found a nice place to jump from. Lastly, Saeko was reading a book and relaxing.

Now I was going to talk to Kohta and Takashi about Takagi. Soon after arriving, she'd initially taken her anger out on Kohta, needling and harassing him. It had most definitely been intentional, and that was strange. She'd been volatile at first, sure, but she'd hadn't been this bad as far as I remember. While some of it could be excused as her being riled up by how some of the people here babied them, it didn't explain why she'd gone after him specifically. The only reason she'd gone to annoy other people was because the others had called her out on it.

I could've been reading this wrong and she really was just that awful but I wanted to be sure. Maybe I could do something about it. Maybe. The worst Kohta and Takashi could do was say no. Maybe.

I went where I'd last found them and sat down next to Kohta, "any idea why Takagi seems to have it in for you?" I managed to get that out without stuttering or getting my tongue tied. Nice.

Kohta blinked for a bit, then settled with a bitter expression, looking down at the floor. Takashi looked over to him, seemingly for approval, to which Kohta nodded but turned away to sulk presumably. "A bit after we'd left school, on the bus, some guy started being an asshole and Kohta shot him. Straight in the head. Takagi didn't like that he took someone down over what she thought wasn't too big of a deal, even if it was annoying. It only got worse when he kicked a group of them off for seemingly no reason. They started to argue but Hisashi got them to hold off and things have been tense between them since." Kohta had looked as if he was going to cut in when Takashi had said 'for no reason' but held his tongue, continuing to glare at the floor a few feet away. From what I remembered of the bus, Kohta had nearly killed Shido that early on, missing and then leaving shortly after. Rei and Takashi had been separated due to Shido claiming leadership of the bus and... that was all that was relevant at the moment. So Kohta had presumably actually killed someone, probably one of Shido's lackeys. I'd had no idea Takagi would get mad at that. Nothing I could've done since there'd been a small chance of Kohta missing in the first place, I wasn't surprised it had struck true this time.

Since Kohta definitely wouldn't regret it and Takagi was probably too stubborn to admit that she could see why he'd done it if she ever did, there wasn't really much I could do. I doubt I could stick around long enough to try and explain it to her without blowing up at her or at least getting off my fair share of snips. Someone else would have to do it.

"I don't think she's happy that you're here either." I looked at Takashi, raising a brow and hoping for him to explain. "She just met you yesterday and hardly knows a thing about you, the first thing she saw you do other than laundry or sleep was tear apart a bunch of Them like an animal or something. Not that that's a bad thing right now." That wasn't good, but he was right, she hardly knew me for a few hours and then I'm just ripping things apart like a madman, not exactly a good first or second impression if you counted showing up covered in grime. Still, I couldn't really do anything about that yet, what I could change was the way they addressed zombies. Just hearing him say 'Them' made me grimace more than the rest of it did. Well, first thing's first I suppose.

"I see. Nothing to be done about that yet, but have you or Hisashi tried explaining things to her?" Takashi looked at me with confusion.

"No, but Kohta already did, I don't see how that would change for us." He might have a point, but it was better to be sure.

"Kohta's the one she has a problem with, why would she listen to him? You guys are childhood friends and Hisashi's the most reasonable person in the group, I'm sure if she listens to one of us it'd be one of you guys." Takashi thought about that for a bit and nodded, seeming to accept what I said. Good, with that settled...

"Zombies." He and Kohta flinched when I said that, but I just kept a straight face and said it again. They flinched again. They acted as if zombies being real meant it needed new classification, a zombie was a zombie, there was neither a reason nor a way to try and avoid that when they were around every street and corner. Plus, They, Them and all the rest was super vague, the pronoun game wasn't something that was ever enjoyable and while 'Them' would eight or nine times out of ten refer to zombies, it could still be used as a reference for anything else; better to get the need for clarification out of the way and just call them what they were.

"Ghouls, walkers, zeds, etc. That's what they're called, why do you guys say Them?"

"This isn't the movies Vega-san," As Kohta said that I looked to where I imagined a camera would be, 'isn't the movies' my busy, exhausted, tuchus; since multiple universes existed I had no doubt this was at least some kind of media, maybe even just a doujin. Nevertheless, I didn't say anything to interrupt. "We can't just call them that."

"And why not? That's what they are, that's what everyone will see and recognize them as. It's best to be specific when talking about problems and saying zombies by itself does a lot more than Them, at least for anyone with sense. Saying Them will do no one any good." My mind went to the idiots from the bridge and the ones that had died when the manor was overrun. Hopefully, they'd get some sense knocked into their thick skulls. Regardless, I'd said my piece and started to leave. Hopefully, they followed what I said and didn't take offense to the way I'd said it.

Now that I'd officially run out of parties to crash and things to do, I just set about to wandering about. I'd been so busy these past few weeks and missed just walking without purpose. Maybe an idea of what to do would come to me as I did.

o0o

[3rd]{Takashi}

They'd just sat there for a few minutes after Thomas left. Thinking about what he'd said, then Takashi had slowly risen from where he was sitting and left, what for he didn't know, what he did know was that the short talk they'd just had was sticking with him. The contents hadn't been too much to handle, he was pretty certain that Kohta agreed. He wasn't sure if he did, just that something about it had irritated him. Even if he had some lingering resentment towards Hisashi for reasons he'd rather not go into, he was still Takashi's best friend. Having someone, even another friend, just try and push away what Hisashi had said as wrong, rubbed him the wrong way. More than that, and this was definitely due to the atmosphere, something about it had reminded him about how all the adults had gone out of their way to do everything and just smile at them as if they were kids that needed complete protection. Thomas was hardly any older than they were and the whole time he'd known him, Takashi felt like he was just with a friend that went to a different school, there was no way he would look down on them in this situation.

Takashi took a deep breath and let it out. He started heading to where he'd last seen Takagi, stopping as he thought that going to his highly volatile, possibly still angry, friend probably wouldn't be a good idea and that he should just get Hisashi to do the explaining. Then he remembered that Hisashi had gone on a walk with Rei and the joy on both of their faces and his heart twisted a bit. He continued heading to Takagi, thinking about the couple he'd chosen to leave be.

"Pinky promise? What a load of shit."

o0o

{Saeko}

Saeko had been reading for the last couple of hours before deciding she'd sat down for long enough. As much as her life had been in danger before, she'd still felt a rush at being able to let loose and just cut through everything. Suddenly going from that to sitting still as she was pushed to safety was tough. She'd done it without any visible difficulty as was expected of one from the Busujima line, but she still felt that itch to go out and feel it again, testing her mettle against some mindless brutes who couldn't and wouldn't tell of the excitement on her face as she cut them down.

"Ah, Saeko, know where the others are?" She looked over to Thomas, seeing him gearing up and tilting her head in curiosity.

"I have not, but, may I ask what you're doing?"

"I'm going outside the grounds to look for stuff in the area, there's a lot of abandoned houses here and I'm sure most people are either too busy surviving or being dead to get it all." He grabbed his quiver, making sure it was tightly fastened as he spoke.

"May I come with you?" He looked at her for a second before nodding.

"Sure, fine with me, as long as that's what you want to do." She smiled at consideration and nodded her head. He looked down her over and pointed at her attire. "You wanna get changed or were you planning on wearing a kimono out into the thick of it?"

"Ah, please give me a few minutes to get changed." He nodded and sat down, giving the affirmative. Saeko walked off to find something suitable, probably just what she'd wore when they were out earlier. Still, as she walked to get her clothes, she was happy to be able to scratch her itch without anyone being the wiser as to why.

o0o

[1st]

No one really knew what kind of supplies I had, not even the main group. I hadn't really been hiding it, there just wasn't really any reason to pull out my stuff yet. As for those here, I wasn't sure whether they'd try to take some of my stuff and they'd not asked to check what was inside. I figured going out to look for stuff meant I could hand them some, get some brownie points perhaps, while also making sure neither I didn't have to dip into my own resources yet.

When Saeko came back, she'd changed back into her clothes from earlier. As we started to head out, I could see some people sneering at us, seeing what looked like kids playing at adult stuff. Leave it to the HOTD universe to ruin a good thing with trashy people. Rather than a gate or anything, I'd decided to just vault the walls. No need to tell those in charge what we were doing and I didn't want them to tell Saeko she couldn't go for some reason or another. The last thing I needed was for more people to be angry.

"So, do you have an idea on where we're going?" Saeko asked once we'd made it a few feet away from the manor grounds.

"Yeah, there should be some safeish places near here." I'd chosen an area that was rather devoid of zombies as most of them were by the front, where a lot of the noise was. Having most of this area figured out helped me think of places the zombies likely wouldn't be. I had a certain house in mind, it was of a decent size without the kind of security that would attract zombies and was uphill, so any that were there would have a harder time chasing us.

"Do you know this area?" Saeko looked at me, tilting her head. I just nodded.

"I'm familiar with most of the town, I like taking walks, although that probably doesn't come as a surprise to you." After that, there was silence for a time. Even though I'd said near, that had been relative. I had no doubt that the Takagi's hadn't at least considered the idea of looting houses and figured going a bit farther out to get my stuff wouldn't step on any toes. Plus, there would be far fewer walkers there, being some ways away from the more populated part of the area.

At least, that was how it should have happened. Before we'd even come into view of my intended target, I heard groans from nearby. We stopped. From the sounds of it there weren't that many, maybe three dozen, and if they were here so soon then that most likely meant there hadn't been much time for anyone to ransack the place, this thought was supported by the lack of alarms or obvious points of entry. All in all, it was still definitely worth a shot to break in.

"Saeko," I whispered to get her attention. "Go around the other way, there's not that many and this place looks pretty solid so it's still possible this place'll be worth it." She nodded and jumped over the wall we were hiding behind, making her way to the other end of the house. I made my way to the group as well, already getting to work in clearing them out. Saeko came shortly after, cutting through the zombies with much more grace and gusto than I was. Things went rather smoothly until I heard a sharp gasp, the first major sound since we started. Those that weren't busy being double dead were ambling her way now. I was confused why she did that until I saw what she was facing.

Children.

I'd been doing this for the better part of a week, killing kids wasn't really enough wasn't really enough to register anymore, but I remembered that was what had caused her to freeze in canon. If memory served it had been after fleeing Takagi's that this had happened, too bad I hadn't accounted for this happening so soon.

As the little ones raised their hands toward her, jaws already working for what could very soon be their next meal, I ran through those in front of me, ignoring their grasping hands with a few shoves and swept through the ones reaching for her, their heads either turning into a fine mist or flying off from the force of the arm running through. I shoved her away and whirled around, set on finishing the group off so we could head inside and do what we came to do as well as talk this through with Saeko.

With the exterminating done, I pulled Saeko to the door, finding the door unlocked when I tested the knob and pushing through to sit her down.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as I tried to put my thoughts in order and remember what I'd planned on saying to her after she started explaining.

"So. What happened back there?" I asked quietly, trying not to disturb the quiet too much. Didn't want her feeling too uncomfortable to talk. There was no answer and I carried on. "There must be a reason you stopped earlier." Again, nothing. We sat there for a bit longer. I don't know if there were any pauses originally but I hoped this wasn't a bad sign.

I was gonna open my mouth when she spoke first, body still in the same position as when we'd arrived. "I...I'm not sure if you would understand but...will you listen to what I say? And hold any comments until the end?" She turned her head towards me a bit, that was good, this was progress.

"Sure."

"Four years ago, I was walking alone at night and was attacked by a man. Of course, I had my sword with me and beat him, I broke his shoulder blade and femur. Along with a few other things." This was where she made the reveal. "The police took me in at first but sent me home given the circumstances. But. There was a reason they held me for as long as I did." She abruptly turned to me, a wide smile on her face as her pupils dilated, her face gaining color. "I liked it! It felt so good to see him suffer, being so utterly above him, the way he cowered and scrambled in fear! I loved it! It was exhilarating!" She came down from the excitement, not shying away but drawing into herself a bit.

"That is what the _real_ Saeko Busujima is like. I pretend to have the heart and soul of a young girl but I go crazy when I have the upper hand. Back there, I realized I haven't changed at all. That I might be getting worse." She finished the last part quietly, as a whisper. As if saying it out loud meant it was irrevocably true.

The reason was different than I remembered, even from the very beginning. I'd had it completely wrong. Which meant that the little spiel I'd prepared wouldn't really do much, at least, most of it wouldn't.

So now, here we were, sitting in silence as I tried to come up with something to comfort her.

"This... this isn't a problem." I began, trying to put together what I would say so I didn't mess it up too much. "You've been holding these urges back for years, right?" She nodded, her gaze vulnerable, but wary. She obviously didn't expect me to say anything nice. "If you hold something back, especially if its for a long time it makes sense the feelings would be all the more intense, right? It doesn't bother me anyways, and even if it did, everyone has problems, even the people close to you that doesn't mean you stop caring for them." Unless it was something that couldn't be compromised on, but I doubt saying that would be comforting to her. Still, it seemed she was thinking the same thing, so I tried coming up with something else to say. "Think about Kohta, about how ready he was to kill those people on the bus and he's still here with us. Murderous or sadistic intent is hardly the worst thing you could have right now." I really hope this got through to her.

"You remember Shido? From school?" She nodded, not knowing we this was going. "I killed him." Her eyes went wide, a small gasp escaping her, probably not from who it was so much as it was the fact I did it. "It was about a week before this all started. I was lucky this happened before someone found the body but something I can tell you with absolute certainty is that if I'd known I could get away with this, I would have made him suffer a lot longer before doing him in." She stared at me, shocked into silence, her mouth open a bit.

I hadn't planned on telling her about that but none of it in been a lie. Until I'd come across the zombies and seen them with my own eyes, I'd been both hopeful and worried that this wouldn't happen. If I'd been 100% sure of this happening I'd have tried my hardest to make him suffer for all of the people he'd gotten killed. Or worse.

Having run out of things to say, I set there for a bit, waiting for a possible reply. When she didn't respond after a few minutes, I got up to look around the house. We came here for a reason after all and the heavy subject matter and my maybe not so successful attempt at helping Saeko with her problems wouldn't change that. Better to make the trip here worthwhile than stew in possibilities.

o0o

I'd picked up quite bit of supplies, more than enough to justify coming here, zombies and not so hidden insecurities notwithstanding.

Saeko had come out of the room I left her in, now on the other end of the house searching for goods as well.

We'd hardly gone through half of the house when I realized there wasn't enough room in my pack to bring all this back, we'd have to prioritize what to bring along, not that that was a bad thing. Food and toiletries were a higher priority than water as most of the food we found was perishables and toiletries would be harder to come by when they ran out then water.

All that remained were two rooms in Saeko's area and a shed outside the main house which I'd taken on account of being able to Lockpick, although that decision didn't mean anything as the door here was unlocked as well. When I opened it, I felt something change in the air, something unfamiliar. That put me on my guard.

When I got closer I toned down the noise. It wouldn't do to be caught if it was something alive or undead dead down there. Not that I really thought that's what this was.

When I got down, there wasn't a person, zombie, or even a monster.

What I saw was a circle, written in gray and green.


End file.
